Human skin colour clustering for face detection

Computer vision is one out of many areas that wants to understand the process of human functionality and copy that process with intention to complement human life with intelligent machines. For better human-computer interaction it is necessary for the machine to see people. This can be achieved by employing face detection algorithms, like the one used in the installation "15 Seconds of Fame". Mentioned installation unites the areas of modern art and technology, Its algorithm is based on skin colour detection. One of the problems this and similar algorithms have to deal with is sensitivity to the illumination conditions under which the input image is captured. Hence illumination sensitivity influences face detection results. One of the aspects from which we can observe illumination influence is the choice of the proper colour space. Since some colour spaces are designed to eliminate the influence of illumination (brightness) when describing colour of an object, an idea of using such a colour space for skin-colour detection has been taken under consideration and some of the methods have been researched and tested.