FaceBase: facial measurements of thousands of subjects based on 3D imaging

[Komintasavalta]

The website contains data about 34 facial measures for a total of about 2,500 subjects: https://www.facebase.org/facial_norm.../#maxcranwidth. The subjects are described as being "of European-Caucasian ancestry between the ages of 3-40 years", and the project is based in the United States, so I guess the subjects are mostly U.S. whites. Most of the measures are based on 3D imaging, but a few measurements are performed using a caliper.

On this page, you can calculate the z-scores of your own measurements relative to a selected age and sex group: https://www.facebase.org/facial_norms/tools/. However the sample sizes for some age groups are so small that it's common for your z-scores to vary by more than .5 depending on which age group you select.

I downloaded the CSV files for each 34 measures by opening the page for the measure and clicking the "Download Tables" button. I then combined the CSV files into a single table: https://pastebin.com/raw/bE5yH0gY.

Then for men aged 25-34, I calculated the average value and standard deviation of each measure weighted by sample size (the age group labeled 33 in the CSV data means 33-34):

curl https://pastebin.com/raw/bE5yH0gY|awk -F\; '$2=="male"&&$3>=25&&$3<=33{x[$1]+=$4;y[$1]+=$5*$4;z[$1]+=$6*$4}END{for(i in x)printf"%s;%.2f;%.2f\n",i,y[i]/x[i],z[i]/x[i]}'|sort
cranbasewidth;148.25;5.52
cutlowlipheight;12.63;2.54
incanthwidth;32.61;2.96
labfiswidth;51.15;3.69
lowfacedepth_l;151.86;6.24
lowfacedepth_r;152.68;6.10
lowfaceheight;73.39;4.98
lowlipheight;19.21;2.82
lowvermheight;8.50;2.24
mandwidth;105.18;7.35
maxcranlength;198.65;7.20
maxcranwidth;152.15;5.58
maxfacewidth;137.44;6.54
midfacedepth_l;132.37;5.04
midfacedepth_r;133.24;4.74
minfrntwidth;112.53;9.39
morphfaceheight;127.44;6.31
nasalalalength_l;35.48;2.17
nasalalalength_r;35.48;2.03
nasalbdglength;49.89;3.94
nasalheight;56.50;4.09
nasalpro;20.88;2.01
nasalwidth;36.04;2.51
outcanthwidth;88.87;3.85
palpfislength_l;28.61;1.93
palpfislength_r;28.93;1.87
phillength;16.77;2.37
philwidth;13.28;1.73
subnasalwidth;19.48;2.63
upfacedepth_l;126.39;4.72
upfacedepth_r;126.86;4.62
upfaceheight;78.30;4.35
uplipheight;22.91;2.27
upvermheight;7.40;1.59

Here's the z-scores of my own measurements normed against the data in the table above:

$ curl https://pastebin.com/raw/bE5yH0gY|awk -F\; '$2=="male"&&$3>=25&&$3<=33{x[$1]+=$4;y[$1]+=$5*$4;z[$1]+=$6*$4}END{for(i in x)print i";"y[i]/x[i]";"z[i]/x[i]}'|sort>/tmp/a
$ echo 'maxcranlength;213
maxcranwidth;157
maxfacewidth;145
mandwidth;112
morphfaceheight;117
upfaceheight;70
lowfaceheight;69
outcanthwidth;94
nasalwidth;41
nasalpro;24
nasalheight;48
nasalbdglength;42
labfiswidth;57
uplipheight;26'>/tmp/b
$ awk -F\; 'NR==FNR{a[$1]=$2;b[$1]=$3;next}{printf"%.2f;%s\n",($2-a[$1])/b[$1],$1}' /tmp/[ab]
1.99;maxcranlength
0.87;maxcranwidth
1.16;maxfacewidth
0.93;mandwidth
-1.65;morphfaceheight
-1.91;upfaceheight
-0.88;lowfaceheight
1.33;outcanthwidth
1.98;nasalwidth
1.55;nasalpro
-2.08;nasalheight
-2.00;nasalbdglength
1.59;labfiswidth
1.36;uplipheight

If I performed my measurements correctly, my upper facial height and my nose height are about 2 SDs below average, but my lower facial height is only about 1 SD below average. My cranium length is about 2 SDs above average. My cranium width, face width, and mandible width are about 1 SD above average. My nose width is about 2 SDs above average and my nasal projection is about 1.5 SDs above average. My labial fissure width (mouth width) is about 1.5 SDs above average.

[Lucas]

So we can measure our simple photo of face there? Or we must add raw measurements?

[Komintasavalta]

I calculated the average measurements of 27 male mostly Uralic populations included in Mark and Heapost 2014, and I compared them against the measurements of 25-34-year-old males at FaceBase:

(z-score;Mark average;FaceBase average;FaceBase SD;measure)
-1.25;189.67;198.65;7.20;maxcranlength
0.23;153.44;152.15;5.58;maxcranwidth
-0.51;107.76;112.53;9.39;minfrntwidth
0.53;140.88;137.44;6.54;maxfacewidth
0.62;109.72;105.18;7.35;mandwidth
-0.04;35.93;36.04;2.51;nasalwidth
0.72;53.81;51.15;3.69;labfiswidth

I think Mark measured minimum frontal width in a different way than FaceBase, because in the table above, the z-score for minimum frontal width is about -.5 even though cranium width and bizygomatic width are above average.

The z-scores for bizygomatic width, bigonial width, and mouth width are around .5-.7, which is consistent with how I'd expect Uralic people to score against U.S. whites.

The z-score for cranium length in the table above is surprisingly low, but it might be partially because Mark's data is from the 50s-70s when people still had shorter stature and smaller head size. The average cranium length among 25-34-year-old males at FaceBase was 198.7 mm (SD 7.2), which is very high by the standards of old anthropological sources. Coon said this about a Norwegian population: "The mean head length of the Valle males reaches the extreme figure of 198 mm."

So we can measure our simple photo of face there? Or we must add raw measurements?

You have to perform the measurements manually. I used a cheap caliper that I bought from our Mongoloid brothers on eBay.

[Komintasavalta]

I estimated average cephalic index among each age group by dividing the average cranial width of the age group with the average cranial length. It is not the same as taking the average value of each individual's cranial width divided by cranial length. However individual-level data is not publicly available at FaceBase.



Code:

curl https://pastebin.com/raw/bE5yH0gY>/tmp/a
for s in male female;do cut -d\; -f3 /tmp/a|sort -nu|while read a;do awk -F\; '$3==a&&$2==s&&$1~/^maxcran/{print$5}' a=$a s=$s /tmp/a|paste - -|awk '{print a,100*$1/$2}' a=$a;done>/tmp/$s;done
gnuplot -e 'set term png size 600,450;set output"/tmp/a.png";set title"Average cephalic index among U.S. whites\nData from: facebase.org/facial\\_norms/summary";set xlabel"Age";set ylabel"Cephalic index";plot"/tmp/male"w lines title"Males"lt rgb"#0000ff","/tmp/female"w lines title"Females"lt rgb"#ff0000"'

[Komintasavalta]

Here's the difference between males and females aged 20 to 40 expressed as z-scores (using the average of the standard deviations for males and females). This time I took a non-weighted average of each age group instead of an average weighted by sample size, so that age groups with a large sample size are not overrepresented.

Notes:

- Males ranked above females in every measure, but the difference in the vermillion height of the upper and lower lips was negligible.
- The difference in cranial length (1.6) was higher than cranial width (1.2). Cranial width divided by cranial length was also lower in males (.766) than females (.779).
- The difference in nose width (1.4) was much higher than nose length (.5). Nose width divided by nose height was .64 for males and .59 for females.
- The difference in cranial base width (1.7) was higher than cranium width (1.2) and much higher than minimum frontal width (.7). Cranial base width (bitragion width or biauricular diameter) means the distance from the left tragion to the right tragion.
- The difference in upper facial depth was lower than the difference in lower facial depth. The difference in facial depth was larger on the right side than on the left side. Both males and females had higher facial depth on the right side.
- The difference in face height (1.4) was much higher than the difference in upper facial height (.9), nasal bridge length (.7), or nose height (.5).
- The difference in nose width (1.4) was higher than the difference in mouth width (.8).

$ curl https://pastebin.com/raw/bE5yH0gY>/tmp/a
$ for s in {,fe}male;do awk -F\; '$2==s&&$3>=20{x[$1]+=$5;y[$1]+=$6;z[$3]}END{n=length(z);for(i in x)print i";"x[i]/n";"y[i]/n}' s=$s /tmp/a>/tmp/$s;done
$ nuf(){ ruby -e'$stdin.each{|x|puts x.gsub(/-?\d*\.\d+|\d+/){|x|ARGV[0]$&.to_f}}' -- "$1";}
$ paste -d\; /tmp/{,fe}male|awk -F\; '{print($2-$5)/(($3+$6)/2)";"$2";"$5";"$1}'|sort -rn|nuf %.2f
2.08;152.14;139.37;lowfacedepth_r
2.01;133.30;123.71;midfacedepth_r
2.01;151.51;139.01;lowfacedepth_l
1.96;35.54;31.61;nasalalalength_r
1.89;132.57;123.29;midfacedepth_l
1.87;35.59;31.75;nasalalalength_l
1.72;148.15;139.04;cranbasewidth
1.72;127.03;119.03;upfacedepth_r
1.62;198.30;187.34;maxcranlength
1.61;126.59;118.81;upfacedepth_l
1.42;36.12;32.60;nasalwidth
1.41;127.41;118.54;morphfaceheight
1.37;137.89;129.82;maxfacewidth
1.34;73.33;66.39;lowfaceheight
1.20;152.36;145.80;maxcranwidth
1.04;104.43;97.02;mandwidth
0.96;16.69;14.34;phillength
0.94;22.88;20.52;uplipheight
0.94;78.42;74.28;upfaceheight
0.87;88.79;85.39;outcanthwidth
0.86;13.27;11.79;philwidth
0.79;19.46;17.44;subnasalwidth
0.77;12.66;10.83;cutlowlipheight
0.77;50.96;48.18;labfiswidth
0.70;19.29;17.54;lowlipheight
0.68;49.96;47.39;nasalbdglength
0.66;111.00;105.55;minfrntwidth
0.52;28.89;27.89;palpfislength_r
0.52;56.66;54.66;nasalheight
0.50;28.62;27.65;palpfislength_l
0.48;32.66;31.31;incanthwidth
0.41;21.01;20.21;nasalpro
0.11;7.49;7.32;upvermheight
0.07;8.59;8.44;lowvermheight

[Komintasavalta]

The table below compares the measurements of ages 31-40 to ages 21-30. It includes both sexes. The z-scores are calculated using the average of the standard deviations of both groups.

In the older age group, the height of the vermillion border of the lips is lower, but the height of the rest of the lip is higher (where the rest of the lip means the philtrum for the upper lip and the cutaneous lower lip for the lower lip). I don't think it's simply because of differences in makeup, because the same effect was also visible in males only. However there may not have been a requirement for the subjects to wear no makeup, because the FaceBase website said that "The presence of excessive lipstick and lip liners can also be problematic." (https://www.facebase.org/facial_norms/notes/)

In the older group, there is a larger increase in upper facial height (.37) than in lower facial height (.18). Face width is also increased in the older group (.25). Palpebral fissure width and outercantal width are also slightly lower in the older group.

(z-score of 31-40 relative to 21-30;31-40;21-30;measure)
0.68;8.96;8.12;phillength
0.52;6.79;6.13;cutlowlipheight
0.48;11.88;11.28;uplipheight
0.37;39.75;38.93;upfaceheight
0.25;69.51;68.68;maxfacewidth
0.23;17.98;17.72;nasalalalength_l
0.21;17.93;17.71;nasalalalength_r
0.20;64.12;63.45;morphfaceheight
0.19;9.80;9.54;lowlipheight
0.18;36.99;36.50;lowfaceheight
0.18;25.19;24.84;nasalbdglength
0.14;74.36;73.94;cranbasewidth
0.13;9.88;9.68;subnasalwidth
0.11;28.44;28.21;nasalheight
0.11;63.51;63.23;upfacedepth_l
0.11;66.50;66.21;midfacedepth_l
0.10;63.69;63.44;upfacedepth_r
0.09;25.65;25.48;labfiswidth
0.09;75.99;75.70;lowfacedepth_l
0.08;66.78;66.59;midfacedepth_r
0.06;76.24;76.04;lowfacedepth_r
0.06;6.68;6.62;philwidth
0.04;99.25;99.10;maxcranlength
0.02;18.10;18.07;nasalwidth
0.00;10.50;10.49;nasalpro
-0.03;16.33;16.37;incanthwidth
-0.06;14.27;14.33;palpfislength_l
-0.07;55.43;55.76;minfrntwidth
-0.08;52.10;52.39;mandwidth
-0.09;44.30;44.48;outcanthwidth
-0.10;75.93;76.23;maxcranwidth
-0.13;14.36;14.48;palpfislength_r
-0.32;3.53;3.80;upvermheight
-0.43;3.95;4.41;lowvermheight

Compared to ages 16-21, ages 22-30 have a lower height of the vermillion border of the lips, higher depth of the lower face, a wider mouth (.59), and higher minimum frontal width (.49). The increase in bigonial width (.42) is larger than the increase in bizygomatic width (.21). So there seems to be a large increase particularly in the width and length of the mandible.

(z-score of 22-30 relative to 16-21;22-30;16-21;measure)
0.69;76.11;74.02;lowfacedepth_r
0.62;75.79;73.81;lowfacedepth_l
0.59;25.47;24.38;labfiswidth
0.49;56.06;54.25;minfrntwidth
0.42;52.44;50.94;mandwidth
0.36;8.17;7.70;phillength
0.34;6.20;5.76;cutlowlipheight
0.30;9.70;9.32;subnasalwidth
0.24;63.44;62.89;upfacedepth_r
0.24;17.72;17.47;nasalalalength_r
0.23;66.58;66.01;midfacedepth_r
0.21;68.62;68.01;maxfacewidth
0.18;73.97;73.51;cranbasewidth
0.16;17.71;17.53;nasalalalength_l
0.15;11.29;11.09;uplipheight
0.14;99.22;98.77;maxcranlength
0.13;63.20;62.86;upfacedepth_l
0.11;63.51;63.14;morphfaceheight
0.11;18.08;17.94;nasalwidth
0.10;66.16;65.91;midfacedepth_l
0.09;44.44;44.26;outcanthwidth
0.09;6.60;6.52;philwidth
0.08;36.51;36.29;lowfaceheight
0.06;16.38;16.29;incanthwidth
0.05;14.46;14.41;palpfislength_r
0.03;14.29;14.26;palpfislength_l
0.02;9.57;9.54;lowlipheight
-0.01;76.19;76.23;maxcranwidth
-0.02;38.96;39.00;upfaceheight
-0.03;24.85;24.91;nasalbdglength
-0.09;10.50;10.59;nasalpro
-0.17;28.22;28.54;nasalheight
-0.42;3.76;4.11;upvermheight
-0.50;4.37;4.88;lowvermheight

The height of the vermillion border of the lips seems to peak at around age 16-21:

$ curl -s https://pastebin.com/raw/bE5yH0gY|awk -F\; '$1~/vermheight/&&$2!="both"{a[$3]+=$5}END{for(i in a)print a[i]/2,i}'|sort -rn
18.015 16
17.775 19
17.625 20
17.47 21
17.45 18
17.035 17
16.94 15
16.915 13
16.69 22
16.61 23
16.475 14
16.46 24
16.435 25
16.305 30
16.19 26
16.02 12
15.89 11
15.83 27
15.745 28
15.39 29
15.305 10
15.08 33
15.07 31
14.96 37
14.76 35
14.635 8
14.45 9
14.39 3
14.08 39
13.675 7
13.25 6
12.945 4
12.935 5
12.91 3.5
12.345 4.5

[Übermensch]

My measuaments:

Head lenght: 225mm (Glabella to occiput)
head widht: 169mm
auricular height:150mm
minium frontal: 128mm
byzigomatic: 160mm
bigonial: 135mm
total facial height:134mm
upper facial height: 84mm
nasal height:61mm
nasal widht:35mm

I'm 188 cm tall btw...

[Komintasavalta]

My measuaments:

I'm a bit suspicious of those, because here are your z-scores relative to men between ages 25 and 34 at FaceBase. Your bigonial width is over 4 SDs above average, and your cranium length and bizygomatic width are about 3.5 SDs above average.

(z-score;Übermensch;FaceBase average;FaceBase SD;measure)
3.66;225;198.65;7.20;maxcranlength
3.02;169;152.15;5.58;maxcranwidth
1.65;128;112.53;9.39;minfrntwidth
3.45;160;137.44;6.54;maxfacewidth
4.06;135;105.18;7.35;mandwidth
1.04;134;127.44;6.31;morphfaceheight
2.23;88;78.30;4.35;upfaceheight
1.10;61;56.50;4.09;nasalheight
-0.41;35;36.04;2.51;nasalwidth

The standard deviations above are the n-weighted averages of the standard deviations of each age group. I would need access to individual-level data to calculate the real standard deviation of all individuals within the age groups taken together.

On a perfect normal distribution, only about 1 in 30,000 is above 4 SDs and 1 in 4,000 is above 3.5 SDs:

$ ruby -rintegration -e'p 1.0/(0.5-Integration.integrate(0,4){|x|Math.exp(-x**2/2)/Math.sqrt(2*Math::PI)})'
31574.32290791151
$ ruby -rintegration -e'p 1.0/(0.5-Integration.integrate(0,3.5){|x|Math.exp(-x**2/2)/Math.sqrt(2*Math::PI)})'
4298.687107862648

If I had access to individual-level data, I could count how many people in the dataset had a higher cranial length than you.

You can calculate the z-scores yourself on this page: https://www.facebase.org/facial_norms/tools/. But then for example the z-score of your cranial length is 3.3 for age 27 and 4.2 for age 28.

[Übermensch]

I'm a bit suspicious of those, because here are your z-scores relative to men between ages 25 and 34 at FaceBase. Your bigonial width is over 4 SDs above average, and your cranium length and bizygomatic width are about 3.5 SDs above average.

(z-score;Übermensch;FaceBase average;FaceBase SD;measure)
3.66;225;198.65;7.20;maxcranlength
3.02;169;152.15;5.58;maxcranwidth
1.65;128;112.53;9.39;minfrntwidth
3.45;160;137.44;6.54;maxfacewidth
4.06;135;105.18;7.35;mandwidth
1.04;134;127.44;6.31;morphfaceheight
2.23;88;78.30;4.35;upfaceheight
1.10;61;56.50;4.09;nasalheight
-0.41;35;36.04;2.51;nasalwidth

The standard deviations above are the n-weighted averages of the standard deviations of each age group. I would need access to individual-level data to calculate the real standard deviation of all individuals within the age groups taken together.

On a perfect normal distribution, only about 1 in 30,000 is above 4 SDs and 1 in 4,000 is above 3.5 SDs:

$ ruby -rintegration -e'p 1.0/(0.5-Integration.integrate(0,4){|x|Math.exp(-x**2/2)/Math.sqrt(2*Math::PI)})'
31574.32290791151
$ ruby -rintegration -e'p 1.0/(0.5-Integration.integrate(0,3.5){|x|Math.exp(-x**2/2)/Math.sqrt(2*Math::PI)})'
4298.687107862648

If I had access to individual-level data, I could count how many people in the dataset had a higher cranial length than you.

I know it might sounds weird, but my skull is really extremly large:

This is me in comparison to a friend of mine who has an head lenght of 195mm:

[Lucas]

I know it might sounds weird, but my skull is really extremly large:

This is me in comparison to a friend of mine who has an head lenght of 195mm:

You are Castizo?