post-surgery image with a pre-surgery face image. Therefore, an
engineering challenge would be to design an algorithm to correlate
facial features in pre and post surgery images. Local facial regions
such as nose, chin, eyelids, cheek, lips and forehead have an imperative
role in face recognition and small variations in any of these
features carry a partial affect on the neighboring features. Further,
a combination of local plastic surgery procedures may result in a
fairly distinct face from the original face. To develop an algorithm to
assess such non-linear variations in pre and post facial plastic surgery
images makes the engineering challenge fiercer. It is our assertion
that these challenges should receive immediate attention from the
research community to develop efficient face recognition algorithms
that can account for non-linear variations introduced by facial plastic
surgery procedures. Here, it is important to note that plastic surgery
poses some fundamental issues that cannot be completely solved by
engineering solutions only.