Foreword

This book addresses a fundamental step in face recognition research answering, among other issues, the following questions: how to properly measure the distance between surfaces representing faces, what are the pros and contras of each algorithms and how they compare with each other, what are their computational costs. In this respect, this book represents a reference point for PhD students and researchers who want to start working not only at face recognition problems but also at other applications dealing with the recognition of three-dimensional shapes. The need for such a book was particularly evident when we presented to our multidisciplinary team of the High Polytechnic School the topic to be studied that was aimed at the development of a diagnostic tool of prenatal syndromes from three-dimensional ultrasound scans (SYN DIAG). A book, easy to use, putting order and organizing the scientific significance of similarity measures applied to face recognition problems was missing. This aspect was crucial to support the choice of measures to be selected and tested. Coming to the topic of the book, face recognition has several applications, including security, such as authentication and identification of suspects, and medical ones, such as corrective surgery and diagnosis. So, I think that this book is going to be a valuable tool for all scientists 'facing face'.