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Virginia Tech

Color Invariant Skin Segmentation

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

This work addresses the problem of automatically detecting human skin in images without reliance on color information. Unlike previous methods, we present a new approach that performs well in the absence of such information. A key aspect of the work is that color-space augmentation is applied strategically during the training, with the goal of reducing the influence of features that are based entirely on color and increasing more semantic understanding. The resulting system exhibits a dramatic improvement in performance for images in which color details are diminished. We have demonstrated the concept using the U-Net architecture, and experimental results show improvements in evaluations for all Fitzpatrick skin tones in the ECU dataset. We further tested the system with RFW dataset to show that the proposed method is consistent across different ethnicities and reduces bias to any skin tones. Therefore, this work has strong potential to aid in mitigating bias in automated systems that can be applied to many applications including surveillance and biometrics.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2022

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Xu, Han
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Abbott, A. Lynn
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Huang, Jia-Bin
  • Sarkar, Abhijit

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright
Language dc:language.iso
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:34016
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/109445

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Xu, Han. Color Invariant Skin Segmentation. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/109445