3D head pose estimation without feature tracking

We present a robust approach to estimate the 3D pose of human heads in a single image. In contrast with other research, this method only makes use of the information about the skin region and the hair region of heads. At first, we use an efficient algorithm based on a perceptually uniform color system and fuzzy theory to extract the skin region and hair region, which are then used to detect faces in images. After that, the areas, the centers, and the axis of the least inertia both of the skin region and the hair region are calculated, which are then used to estimate the 3D pose of the head. We tested our method by estimating the 3D pose of a head from live video sequences. The three angles describing the three rotation elements of a head about X, Y and Z axes are extracted from each frame of the image sequence, which are then sent to a program that generates CG animations of a synthesized head in the estimated pose.