Spotlight: Facial Substitution

Post No: 8 

Till date my mind was engraved with an idea that face is my identity, whole life I will have to live with it. 
What if you can change that identity, at least on e-world?
Woooosssshhhh!  mind boggling idea.
But can we really do that?
Just have a look at this interesting experiment. This is a technical demo for face substitution technique. But certainly achievable in near future. 

Today Spotlight is on Kyle McDonald, who is an artist and researcher in New York with a background in computer science and philosophy. In October 2011, he released FaceOSC, a tool for prototyping face-based interaction. FaceOSC was based on the work of Jason Saragih, a research scientist at CSIRO. In addition to FaceOSC, Kyle has produced an addon for working with face tracking in OpenFrameworks as well as a growing body of work that uses face tracking in an artistic context, notably Face Substitution with Arturo Castro.

Keep guessing whats next, but with open mind.
Learn how to unlearn and face the whole new world!

Evolving framework of Human Face

Post No: 7 

Why Chimpanzees look like Humans? Is Human face is ever evolving surface?
Answer lies in prehistory, anthropology and archaeology. Let me explain in simple words.

Actually, Humans diverged and evolved from long lineage with its closest living relative, Chimpanzees.
Human face consists of multiple layers, hard solid bone, skull at base, muscles mounted at both ends on bones is the flexible and deformable layer, fascia surface, dermal-fatty layer variable tissue depth depends on health and environmental conditions and the top epidermal surface also called as skin. In simple words face is surface wrapped on skull, thus skull can be considered as the framework of face.

Although as late as the time of 'Charles Darwin', was common to find people who thought there was a independent creation of every species and life form do not change from one generation to another. But Darwin’s five theories suggested :

• Evolution: species come and go through time, while they exist they change.
• Common descent: organisms are descended from one, or several common ancestors and have diversified from this original stock
• Species multiply: the diversification of life involves populations of one species diverging until they become two separate species; this has probably occurred billions of times on earth!
• Gradualism: evolutionary change occurs through incremental small changes within populations; new species are not created suddenly.
• Natural selection: evolutionary change occurs through variation between individuals; some variants give the individual an extra survival probability.

Modern Humans are result of millions of years of evolutionary change and natural selection. 
Plan your visit to Smithsonian National Museum of natural History to have a look at preseved evidences of human origin.  

Image Credit: John Gurche
artist / Don Hurlbert, photographer

Sahelanthropus tchadensis

Sometime between 7 and 6 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Orrorin tugenensis

Sometime between 6.2 and 5.8 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Ardipithecus kadabba

Between about 5.8 and 5.2 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Ardipithecus ramidus

About 4.4 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Australopithecus anamensis

About 4.2 to 3.9 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Australopithecus afarensis

Between about 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Australopithecus garhi

 About 2.5 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Paranthropus aethiopicus

About 2.7 to 2.3 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Australopithecus africanus

About 3.3 to 2.1 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Homo rudolfensis

About 1.9 million to 1.8 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Australopithecus sediba


Between 1.977 and 1.98 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Homo habilis


2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago

Image Credit: Karen Carr Studio

Paranthropus robustus

About 1.8 to 1.2 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Paranthropus boisei

About 2.3 to 1.2 million years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo heidelbergensis


About 700,000 to 200,000 years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo erectus

Between about 1.89 million and 143,000 years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo neanderthalensis


About 200,000 - 28,000 years ago

Image Credit: John Gurche,
artist / Chip Clark, photographer

Homo floresiensis

About 95,000 – 17,000 years ago

Image Credit: Human Origins Program,
Smithsonian Institution

Homo sapiens

About 200,000 years ago to present

Following link shows the Human Family Tree and other variations of human faces.
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree

Biology teacher Andrew Douch makes comparisions between the skull of an ancient Hominin (Australopithecus afarensis) and a modern hominin ( Homo sapiens)

But What's next?

Inspirational Quote by Plato

Post No: 6

Plato (469–399 B.C.E.) great Philosopher, regarded as one of the wisest people of all time. He was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle. His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language. Plato founded the Academy in Athens.

Study of Human Face : Part I

8 September 2013
Post No: 5
Human Face >> General Information

I am interested to know firstly when, why and how mankind got obsessed with a human face, still is an unsolved mystery.

While tracing the roots from latest computer art to sculptures, portraits, illustrations, sketches, manuscripts up to cave paintings, we can see evolution of mankind. This progress also reflects cultural developments. 

Human face has fascinated many painters, poets, philosophers, physicians many other professionals, not only that but every pragmatist and even a pea brain. Amazing and interesting human face related information egressed from their writing, creations, experiments, findings and inferences. Collection of Human face related information and its synthesis is like viewing a diamond from various angles and appreciating each color from those color bands.

In a cultural rebirth from the 14th through the middle of the 17th century which is called as renaissance, many artists and illustrators made efforts to explicate the human face through their creations. We can easily make out pace of the study of human face in the last millennium  From centuries we are documenting our observations and from last 30 years it is at peak.

In 18th century, whole world was intrigued by many streams of science. One of them was Genetics, discipline of biology, the science of heredity and variation in living organisms. Darwin's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel's study of inheritance are the most revolutionary concepts in the history of mankind. Human faces are ever evolving carrier of pattern and mutating surface. Till 19th century, Human group classification was mainly based on facial features. There are many theories about human races based on skin color, cranial or facial features and hair texture. Some of them are still topic of debate. The 0.1% genetic difference that differentiates any two random humans is still the subject of much debate. In the same period other streams like forensic science, plastic surgery and orthodontics also greatly evolved and added another dimension to the study of human face.

Since last 30 years, Computer science has made phenomenal developments and impacted each and every field. Because of its amazing data processing capability and speed the development pace was exponentially increased. With the help of Computer graphics, virtually every object can be simulated and visualized in 3D environment. Today scientists are performing anthropometry with three-dimensional scanners to calculate segmental volumes of an individual body scan. There are several examples in entertainment world that computer graphics has achieved ultimate realism. Human face has extremely intricate topology. In Hollywood movies facial modeling, texturing and
rendering is done in such a way that audience can not distinguish between fake and photo.

Everyday each field is evolving in different direction. Those inventions are revealing new dimensions of human face.

The fact that everyday new innovations are being made in all fields of science, every curious practitioner, thinker and philosopher is documenting his experiments and observations. This trend has picked up speed and complexity with the help of computer technology. Human Face related observations can be found in many different streams. The face related information scattered in various fields can be synthesized to form a solution that will address many questions raised over many generations. To navigate through this huge information ocean and extract the required data, one must have know-how of each stream. Keeping up with the flow of information in these fields is a difficult task.

I will discuss the most appropriate approach that I feel in the next blog post.

Aspects of human face

6 September 2013
Post No: 4
Human Face >> General Information

There are many other aspects of human face. Most significant are:

1.Tool for living, Biological importance

Face is just an outer surface of head. Biologically, Head is the most significant body part. Skull gives the form and shape to face and thus can be considered as the framework of the face. Skull is casing of brain - integral part of nervous system, eyes - entire visual system, nose - entire olfactorysystem and doorways of respiratory system, ears - entire auditory system, mouth - entire gustatory system.  

2. Tool for communication, Impression and Expression

Human face is the most favored communication tool inseparably associated with his emotions. Facial expression comes from the squashing and stretching of facial muscles which conveys emotions. The facial impression is observed by perception. It is psychological evaluation based on look of personality despite of internal details, thought process. By nature, facial impression may be biased as perception is subjective, synthesis based on personal thoughts and experiences. So sometimes it becomes controversial.

3.Tool for identity, Biometric, tool for identification

We come in this world with a face and everybody recognizes us with that face. Every person continuously refines his own face recognizing methodology and builds and modifies his own database of human faces in memory. Each brain in this world is an independent system. Based on uniqueness of features many biometric philosophies were developed based on retinal identification, ear Pattern and facial structure. Thus face has become premier tool of identification. 

Human Face : Few interesting facts

5 September 2013

Post No: 3

The pocket Oxford dictionary defines the human face as “the front part of a person’s head from the forehead to the chin.” Mathematician studies actual dimensions and its relationship whereas artist looks it as a shape, form and proportion. Face is like kaleidoscope, every time it reveals different meaning.

Here are some interesting facts about human face

1. The hardest part of our body - teeth, softest and most flexible part - tongue and lips, the hardest bone in the human body - jawbone, most undulated surface - ears, long hirsute surface - scalp and most reflective parts - eyes, all find place in the face.
2. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body.
3. You must lose over 50% of your scalp hairs before it is apparent to anyone. You lose hundreds of hair a day but you’ll have to lose a lot more before you or anyone else will notice. Half of the hair on your pretty little head will have to disappear before our impending baldness will become obvious to all those around you.
4. Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born. While few babies are born with teeth in place, the teeth that will eventually push through the gums of young children are formed long before the child even leaves the womb. At 9 to 12 weeks the fetus starts to form the teeth buds that will turn into baby teeth.
5. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself. If you've ever chipped a tooth you know just how sadly true this one is. The outer layer of the tooth is enamel which is not a living tissue. Since it’s not alive, it can’t repair itself, leaving our dentist to do the work instead.
6. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. The next time someone suggests you take it on the chin, you might be well advised to take their advice as the jawbone is one of the most durable and hard to break bones in the body.
7. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. While you may not be able to bench press much with your tongue, it is in fact the strongest muscle in your body in proportion to its size. If you think about it, every time you eat, swallow or talk you use your tongue, ensuring it gets quite a workout throughout the day.
8. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Unless you’re trying to give your face a bit of a workout, smiling is a much easier option for most of us. Anyone who’s ever scowled, squinted or frowned for a long period of time knows how it tires out the face which doesn't do a thing to improve your mood.
9. Bone is stronger than some steel. This doesn't mean your bones can’t break of course, as they are much less dense than steel. Bone has been found to have a tensile strength of 20,000 psi while steel is much higher at 70,000 psi. Steel is much heavier than bone, however, and pound for pound bone is the stronger material.
10. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears. In the animal world, humans are the biggest crybabies, being the only animals who cry because they've had a bad day, lost a loved one,  or just don’t feel good.
11. The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip has a name. It is called the philtrum. Scientists have yet to figure out what purpose this indentation serves, though the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most erogenous places on the body.

Reading Faces: Face Value

Post: 002

4 September 2013

This article is not about physiognomy but scientific approach to understand human emotions and expressions.

What does a face really tell us about someone's personality?

Professor David Perrett of the Perception Lab at St Andrews University has spent the best part of a decade trying to pin down the essence of facial attractiveness.

Perrett is using the most widely accepted model of human personality: the five-factor model. This consists of:

• Openness to experience - creative, original, independent
• Conscientiousness - careful, hard-working, conscientious
• Extraversion - affectionate, talkative, sociable
• Agreeableness - forgiving, sympathetic, warm
• Neuroticism - nervous, worrying, highly strung

Click to read more