A hierarchical compositional model for face representation and sketching

We present a hierarchical-compositional face model as a three-layer And-Or graph to account for the structural variabilities over multiple resolutions. In the And-Or graph, an And-node represents a decomposition of certain graphical structure expanding to a set of Or-nodes with associated relations; an Or-node functions as a switch variable pointing to alternative And-nodes. Faces are represented hierarchically: layer one treats each face as a whole; layer two refines the local facial parts jointly as a set of individual templates; layer three divides face into 15 zones and models facial features like eyecorners or wrinkles. Transitions between layers are realized by measuring the minimum-description-length given the face image complexity. Diverse face representations are formed by drawing from hierarchical dictionaries of faces, parts and skin features. A sketch captures the most informative part of a face in a concise and potentially robust representation. However, generating good facial sketches is challenging because of the rich facial details and large structural variations, especially in the high-resolution images. The representing power of our generative model is demonstrated by reconstructing high-resolution face images and generating cartoon sketches. Our model is useful for applications such as face recognition, non-photo-realistic rendering, super-resolution, and low-bit rate face coding.