A methodology for near-optimal computational superimposition of two-dimensional digital facial photographs and three-dimensional cranial surface meshes

The authors present a methodology for human identification based on digital superimposition techniques. This methodology computes a fast, near optimal fit between a three-dimensional skull surface mesh and a two-dimensional digitized facial photograph. Since this is done digitally, (1) the photograph can be enhanced to reduce or eliminate motion blur, overexposure or underexposure, and out-of-focus distortions; (2) previous problems with skull/photograph scaling and alignment are minimized or eliminated; and (3) the photograph and skull can be numerically correlated. Two of several test cases produced from an implementation of this methodology are also presented.