A perception-based approach for assessing facial symmetry and attractiveness from opti-cally acquired surface data

Contact-free optical acquisition methods like the fringe projection technique provide colored 3D shapes which can be used e.g. for the computer aided design of facial prostheses. For this purpose, symmetry has to be taken into account as an important factor affecting esthetics. Thus, its restoration is an essential task in maxillofacial surgery. While there is a well-established framework for calculating a quantitative measure for perceived colors from measured spectra, a similar link between measured and perceived symmetry or attractiveness is missing yet. In this contribution it is investigated how facial asymmetry can be quantified from 3D shape with the aim of enhancing its correlation with perceived symmetry and attractiveness. As perceptually relevant parts of the face are expected to be situated near the midline, central parts are emphasized during calculation of an asymmetry index. Likewise, regions exhibiting a pronounced curvature value are weighted higher than flat ones. These two measures combined with calculated color differences result in statistically significant correlations between objective asymmetry values and subjective symmetry and attractiveness ratings.