2PRELIMINARIES
2.1 Illumination Cone
Let x 2 IR
n
denote an image with n pixels of a convex object
with a Lambertian reflectance function illuminated by a
single point source at infinity, represented by a vector s 2
IR
3
such that its magnitude jsj represents the intensity of the
source and the unit normal s=jsj represents the direction.
Let B 2 IR
n3
be a matrix where each row b in B is the
product of the albedo with unit normal for a point on the
surface projecting to a particular pixel in the image. Under
the Lambertian assumption, x is given by
x ¼ maxðBs; 0Þ; ð1Þ
where maxðBs; 0Þ sets to zero all negative components of
the vector Bs. If the object is illuminated by k light sources
at infinity, then the image is given by the superposition of
the images that would have been produced by the
individual light sources, i.e.,
x ¼
X
k
i¼1
maxðBs
i
; 0Þ: ð2Þ
Due to this superposition, the set of all possible images C of
a convex Lambertian surface created by varying the
direction and strength of an arbitrary number of point light
sources at infinity is a convex cone. Furthermore, any image
in the illumination cone C (including the boundary) can be
determined as a convex combination of extreme rays
(images) given by
x
ij
¼ maxðBs
ij
; 0Þ; ð3Þ
where s
ij
¼ b
i
b
j
are rows of B with i 6¼ j. It is clear that
there are at most mðm 1Þ extreme rays for m n distinct
surface normals [7].
In computer vision, it has been a customary practice to
treat the human face as a Lambertian surface. Although
human faces are not convex, the degree of nonconvexity is
not serious enough to render the concept of the illumination
cone inapplicable [7]. The only difference between the
illumination cone of a human face and a convex object is
that (3) no longer accounts for all the extreme rays and there
are extreme rays that are the result of cast shadows.
Therefore, the formula for the upper bound on the number
of extreme rays is generally more complicated than the
quadratic expression mðm 1Þ above. This poses a formid-
able difficulty for computing the exact illumination cone
(i.e., specifying all the extreme rays). Instead, a subset of the
illumination cone can be computed by sampling lighting
directions on the unit sphere, and (1) is accompanied by ray
tracing to account for the cast shadows.
2.2 Lambertian Reflection and Spherical Harmonics
In this section, we briefly summarize the recent work
presented in [2], [14], [ 15], [19]. Consider a convex
Lambertian object with uniform albedo illuminated by
distant isotropic light sources, and p is a point on the
surface of the object. Pick a loca l ðx; y; zÞ coordinates
system F
p
centered at p such that the z-axis coincides with
the surface normal at p, and let ð; Þ
1
denote the spherical
coordinates centered at p. Under the assumption of distant
and isotropic light sources, the configuration of lights that
illuminate the object can be expressed as a nonnegative
function Lð; Þ. The reflected radiance at p is given by
rðpÞ¼
ZZ
S
kðÞLð; ÞdA
¼
Z
2
0
Z
0
kðÞLð; Þsindd;
ð4Þ
where is the albedo, and kðÞ¼maxðcos ; 0Þ is called the
Lambertian kernel. A similar integral can be formed for any
other point q on the surface to compute the reflected
radiance rðqÞ. The only difference between the integrals at p
and q is the lighting function L: At each point, L is
expressed in a local coordinate system (or coordinate frame
F
p
) at that point. Therefore, considered as a function on the
unit sphere, L
p
and L
q
differ by a rotation given by
L
p
ð; Þ¼L
q
ðgð; ÞÞ, where gð; Þ rotates the directions
ð; Þ in the L
p
to L
q
frame.
The spherical harmonics are a set of functions that form
an orthonormal basis for the set of all square-integrable (L
2
)
functions defined on the unit sphere. They are the analogue
on the sphere to the Fourier basis on the line or circle. The
spherical harmonics, Y
lm
, are indexed by two integers l and
m obeying l 0 and l m l:
Y
lm
ð; Þ¼
N
lm
P
jmj
l
ðcosÞcosðjmjÞ if m>0;
N
lm
P
jmj
l
ðcosÞ if m ¼ 0;
N
lm
P
jmj
l
ðcosÞsinðjmjÞ if m<0;
8
>
<
>
:
ð5Þ
where N
lm
is a normalization factor guaranteeing that the
integral of Y
lm
Y
l
0
m
0
¼
mm
0
ll
0
, and P
jmj
l
is the associated
LEE ET AL.: ACQUIRING LINEAR SUBSPACES FOR FACE RECOGNITION UNDER VARIABLE LIGHTING 3
1. To conform with the notation used in spherical harmonics literature,
denotes the elevation angle and denotes the azimuth angle. In the next
section, however, we will switch the roles of and .
TABLE 1
Summary of Notation Used in this Paper