Point distribution models have been successful in describing shape constraints on two dimensional objects for shape description and image search. It is often the case that a class of objects to be modelled contains certain features which may be wholly present or absent in different instances. Moustaches on faces are a common example. Here we describe a method of coding the presence or absence of a feature within the PDM framework. We show that the method captures the intermittent nature of the feature naturally as on eof the modes of variation, and demonstrate that, where features are intermittently present, greater model specificity is acheived.
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