IDENTIFY COLOR IN NIR

I'm working on a project, i need to identify the ethnicities from the images but they are all taken in near infrared. so i'm confused on how to go about this.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Search the Vision Bibliography for : ethnicity articles, and race articles

[Jack Sparrow]

thank you @image analyst. i dont understand why walter simply found this research completely useless and irrelevant.

[Walter Roberson]

Do not confuse "useless" and "dangerous if it actually worked".

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Oh my!

You do realize that major wars have been fought over questions of ethnicity? Does the term "ethnic cleansing" mean anything to you? Just one picture, run it through your software, and you can tell the ethnic mix, which some people would use as a life or death criteria ? I recommend you read some history, such as about the One Drop Rule.

I would thus highly recommend that you only consider going forward with this project if you already know that it will definitely fail, and that if you have reason to believe it might be successful, then you should refuse it on ethical grounds.

[Jack Sparrow]

MY PROJECT IS ON SOFT BIOMETRICS AND I THINK ETHNICITY IS ALSO PART OF SOFT BIOMETRIC ATTRIBUTES. I GUESS SOME PREVIOUS RESEARCH HAVE BEEN CARRIED ON IDENTIFYING ETHNICITY IN IMAGES. THE PROJECT IS NOT ABOUT CONDEMNING ANY ETHNIC GROUP. INFACT TRAITS SUCH AS SKIN COLOR WOULD NOT BE MENTIONED. THANKS

[Walter Roberson]

Please do not use all upper-case. Online, that is considered to be "shouting".

[Jack Sparrow]

okay, so what do you suggest?

[Walter Roberson]

My points stand. If the technique works, it likely should not be carried out. You have a responsibility to consider the potential application of the work you do.

What socially-helpful reason would you have for trying to determine my ethnicity by a NIR photograph? Is it so people can create iPhone apps to help them find "the right kind of people" to date?

[Jack Sparrow]

The research is actually motivated by a very tragic incident that happen here not too long ago. A small kid was abducted, killed and later dumped in front of her parents house three days later. My country is a multi-cultural country, Up till now, the ethnicity of the criminals could not be identified because the video was capture with normal CCTV. so i'm proposing using NIR which can detect better with more information. The result of the study could also be used for demographic data collection. I think you are having a wrong view of my research.

[Walter Roberson]

On the contrary, it appears that I was quite right about the project's potential for misuse.

When you are searching for someone, you search based upon identifying characteristics. Ethnicity is not reliably a visually identifying characteristic.

For example if you were searching for my next-door neighbor, what good would it do you to know whether you were searching for a descendent of the Saxon Tribes or a descendent of the Angles, or a descendent of the Jutes? One (or more) of those are his Ethnicity. It would take an uncommon person to be able to pick out which one he belonged to, and he probably doesn't know himself. He is Anglo-Saxon, which you might have an easier time getting people to recognize but which is not an ethnicity. People around here might say he is "English", but if he shaved off his mustache it would be more difficult for people to tell. You would, though, get very high agreement that he is "Canadian" -- which is not an ethnicity either.

[Jack Sparrow]

Ethnicity in this sense is not tribe has you've mentioned above. it either african, arabian, asia or caucasian. so you can actually tell that ethnicity in this sense is more permanent attribute because, an asian cannot possibly be looking like an arabian, even if he has a beard as long as 100cm

[Jack Sparrow]

I'm not sure whether I've been able to convince you or not, but, the fact remains that I don't intend to misuse ethnicity in any form or level. I am also black, so you don't need to be stressing ethical issues about ethnicity to me. I really appreciate your comment and view. But, one question I need to ask you is that: Has previous research been carried out on identifying ethnicity or not? If yes, has there work been condemned?

[Walter Roberson]

The term used for that is "race", not "ethnicity". And the classifications you describe have been discredited

[Walter Roberson]

Have you considered increasing the resolution of the cameras? Have you considered using something like Compressive Sensing techniques?

[Jack Sparrow]

Has previous research been carried out on this topic?