DIGIMARC® CENTRIAN™ FIND-A-FACE™ TECHNOLOGY
by Nigel Ward

IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND SPEED OF ID PICTURE CAPTURE

Find-A-Face™ picture capture provides perfectly positioned and cropped facial images of an applicant faster and with better quality.

How it Works
Operators no longer need to position the camera and adjust the focusing mechanism to zero in on applicants. Instead, while the applicant stands in front of a solid coloured background, the operator simply clicks on the CAPTURE button or presses the space bar to capture the portrait image. The camera does the rest automatically.

A high-quality digital camera automatically focuses and takes a picture while adjusting for lighting conditions. The picture is then analysed by Digimarc’s Find-A-Face software to locate the individual against the background. Next, the software locates the applicant’s face and calculates an appropriate cropping frame for a consistent appearance.

The image is then cropped by removing the portion of the picture outside the portrait area. The remaining image is then resized to ensure that the face fills the entire designated area on the driver’s licence or ID document. The photo image then undergoes automatic colour correction to allow the full range of complexions to be accurately represented. The process produces an unrivalled finished image in less than 3 seconds.

Benefits

Find-A-Face represents a major productivity and quality enhancement over traditional photo ID capture systems.

The advantages of Find-A-Face include:

• Quicker throughout
  The system reduces the time required for portrait capture from as much as a minute to just a few seconds. Operators can handle more applicants faster and waiting times are reduced.
  
  
• Reduces training for operators
  No training in portrait photography is required.
  
  
• Improved reliability of portrait capture stations
  As a mechanical component in an otherwise highly electronic process, the traditional camera adjustment mechanism is a major point of failure. This component is entirely eliminated with Find-A-Face.

Rigorous consistency in the quality and characteristics of ID portraits is achieved. Operator controlled portrait systems often introduce major differences in the quality, sizing and positioning of picture IDs. This variability is eliminated with Find-A-Face.

About Digimarc’s Secure Identification Solutions

Digimarc is the world leader in supplying secure identification solutions to governments, business and organisations that require highly secure, high quality and large volume ID Systems and documents. Digimarc’s Secure Identification Solutions can be customized to meet the special needs of an organization and include the hardware, software, services, card materials and security technologies used to provide the highest quality, secure IDs. Digimarc Secure
Identification Solutions are used daily in thousands of locations around the world to produce more than 60 million government-issued photo IDs a year, including drivers licences for 32 U.S. states and national ID cards, voter ID cards, drivers licences, social security cards and other documents for more than 24 countries internationally including the United Kingdom, Latvia, Russia, Mexico, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Botswana and New Zealand.