Now Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Computer

Sun Herald

Sunday March 18, 2007

By DANIEL DASEY DISCOVERY EDITOR

TWO Sydney researchers have created computer software that can distinguish a beautiful female face from a less attractive one.

The scientists developed their beauty equation using 14 facial measurements, 13 related ratios and images of supermodels, actors and more than 200 ordinary Australians.

When a photograph of a woman's face is fed into the program, it instantly returns a beauty rating of between one and 10.

University of Technology, Sydney computer scientists Hatice Gunes and Massimo Piccardi are seeking commercial partners and believe the technology could be useful to people working in a range of fields including cosmetic surgery.

"Potential applications exist in the entertainment industry, cosmetic industry, virtual media and plastic surgery," they explain in their paper in the International Journal Of Human-Computer Studies.

However, their preference is for the medical profession to use the software under supervised conditions to avoid situations where vulnerable people could suffer harm to their self-image.

Associate Professor Piccardi explained the work grew out of efforts to make computers more people-friendly by enhancing their ability to recognise human faces and moods.

Ms Gunes also had a long-standing interest in whether a computer could identify beauty.

To develop the system, the pair divided the face into a series of measurements, such as the distance between the top of the face and the chin and the distance between the eyes. They then assembled a collection of 215 images of women of different ages, levels of attractiveness and ethnic backgrounds, including photographs of Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The images were shown to a mixed gender, multiracial panel of 50 volunteers who gave each face a rating of between one and 10.

They found while participants sometimes varied greatly in the ratings they gave, overall there was significant agreement over what was an attractive face.

Next they analysed the facial measurements of the women in the test images as well as the ratios between the measurements.

By looking for correlations, they were able to determine which features were common in beautiful women and develop software that combined this with facial analysis technology.

The software has been finetuned over several years. When shown an image, the software is capable of predicting what a panel of humans would give the face plus or minus 1.5 marks. Further development should reduce the margin of error.

Dr Piccardi said one use might be for plastic surgery patients who were unsure whether modifications suggested by their doctor would improve their attractiveness.

While currently the software has been developed only to assess female facial beauty, it is possible it could be adapted to rate the beauty of men.

Dr Piccardi said one danger of the software was that it could fall into the hands of adolescents or others sensitive about their looks and harm their self-image.

THE BEAUTY MACHINE

Subject A: CLAUDIA SCHIFFER

Occcupation: SUPERMODEL

Overall rating: 9/10

THE EQUATION: RATIOS USED TO MEASURE BEAUTY

* Vertical distance between pupils and tip of the chin to distance between top

of the face and pupils.

* Vertical distance between top of the face and nose to distance between

nostrils and tip of the chin.

* Vertical distance between pupils and central lip line to distance between lips

and tip of the chin.

* Vertical distance between nostrils and tip of the chin to distance between

pupils and nostrils.

* Vertical distance between pupils and nostrils to distance between nostrils and central lip line.

* Vertical distance between lips and tip of the chin to distance between

nostrils and central lip line.

* Vertical distance between top of face and eyebrows to face length.

* Vertical distance between eyebrows and tip of the nose to face length.

* Vertical distance between tip of the nose and tip of the chin to face length.

* Vertical distance between tip of the nose and lips to distance between lips

and tip of the chin.

* Face width to face length.

* Distance between eyes to face width.

© 2007 Sun Herald

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