关键词: 人脸轮廓提取, Snake模型, 梯度矢量流

Abstract: Active contour model is an important research domain in computer vision.Aiming at the limitations that the traditional Snake model cannot converge to concave edge and the original contour must be close to the real edge of the image，a new facial contour extraction method based on Gradient Vector Flow（GVF） Snake model is proposed by improving the external energy.The algorithm uses GVF as its external energy.It not only expands the effective range of the energy field but also enhances the ability to deal with the concave edge.Experiments show that it can extract facial contour fast and exactly.

Key words: facial contour extraction, Snake model, gradient vector flow