A new three-dimensional photogrammetric face scanner for the morpho-biometric 3D feature extraction applied to a massive field analysis of Italian attractive women

The authors developed a method and a specific photogrammetric 3D scanning equipment for acquiring, analyze and measure the characteristics of the facial soft tissues. The system can be used in anthropometry and for the diagnosis and monitoring of therapy for maxillofacial surgery and for orthodontics. The experiments were conducted on a sample composed of 66 female subjects (64 Caucasian, 1 Ethiopian, 1 Brazilian) finalists at an Italian national Beauty competition done in the year 2010. The subjects were submitted on the same day to the acquisition of faces, according to a new clinical protocol. Morphometric characteristics of the faces were investigated extracting linear measurements, angles, distances and relationships between angles, calculated thanks to the measurement of facial soft tissue landmarks, through which it is possible to reconstruct simplified volumetric models of faces for each candidate. These data were compared with the historical ones available in literature. Performing a statistical analysis on the average values of the samples it was possible to obtain a very interesting indication of which facial parameters are related to facial attractiveness that diversify more different samples of attractive girls. An objective was to identify the aesthetic canons in the form and dimensions of the face of the 66 subjects. The protocol standardization has made it possible to carry out the relief of the sample recreating for all subjects scanned the same conditions in a reliable and fast way. The developed scanner confirmed to be precise for measurements, robust, fast in the relief, easy in the scanning operations, and furthermore it is portable, it has a low weight, low cost, being also completely non-invasive. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Professor Mamoru Mitsuishi and Professor Paulo Bartolo