In the United States alone, hundreds of thousands of people go missing each year. These include underage runaways and abducted children. The search for missing individuals can stretch over many years. Adding to the challenge of finding missing children is the fact that a child's appearance can change significantly from year to year. As a result, any photo of a missing child can quickly become out-dated.

It is desirable, therefore, to be able to automatically “age” a photo of an individual in order to determine what they might look like a year, or years, after they went missing. We are developing a fully automatic technique for 3-D digital age progression that holds the promise of significantly improving the accuracy and efficiency of aging photos of missing or abducted children and adults.