The first database of human faces especially created for face detection:

• BioID Face Detection Database

  1521 images with human faces, recorded under natural conditions, i.e. varying illumination and complex background. The eye positions have been set manually (and are included in the set) for calculating the accuracy of a face detector. A formula is presented to normalize the decision of a match or mismatch. This is, to my knowledge, the first attempt to finally create a real test scenario with precise rules on how to calculate the accuracy of a face detector - open for all to compare their results in a scientific way!

  • A complete revision of all eye position files has been released 2/25/02 - visit http://support.bioid.com/downloads/software/bioid-face-database.html to update the dataset. 
  • The original article describing the database can be downloaded here.
  • For comparison, the data (figure 5 of the article above) of the reference test is now available in RTF format for both the BioID-test and the XM2VTS-test. 

  A new addition: The BioID Face Detection Database is being used within the FGnet project of the European Working Group on face and gesture recognition. Therefore, several additional feature points have been marked up, which are very useful for facial analysis and gesture recognition. This data is also available for public download here.

• Face and Gesture Recognition Working Group FGnet

European FGnet encourages development of face and gesture recognition techniques. Among other contributions worth having a look at, they provide resources especially useful for face detection/recognition. Have a look at "Benchmark Data" to access the list of useful datasets!

• Feret Facial Recognition Technology Database
• Carnegie Mellon Test Images
• Vision Group of Essex University Face Database
• NIST Mug-shot Images Database
• Extended M2VTS Database
  Valuable markup data for the XM2VTS database has recently been published by FGnet
  

 

 

• VALID multimodal Database
  This is an audio-visual database, supplementing the XM2VTS database, from University College Dublin. Eye centers of still face pictures are given!

 

 

 

• The AR-Face Database
  Valuable markup data for the AR database has been published by FGnet
  

 

 

• Yale Face Database
  Concentrates on illumination variations.

 

 

 

• University Oulu Physics-Based Face Database
• Japanese Female Facial Expression (JAFFE) Database
• Caltech Faces 1999 Database  
• UCD Colour Face Image Database for Face Detection  
• Bao Face Database
   Lots of face images, mostly people from Asia. Single face pictures are in the "one faces" subdirectory.

Sooner or later, you will feel the need for an average face model when trying different locating algorithms. Here are some averaged faces:

• Average female and male face (University Regensburg, Germany)
  
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

• A typical averaged face
  

 

 

 

• Half female, half male (about 150 images averaged)
  

 

 

 

 

• Small male average face (using about 300 images)
  

 

 

 

The Face Detection Homepage. By Robert W. Frischholz