A methodology for task-specific metrological characterization of low-cost 3D camera for face analysis

•Face analysis is core for many medical, security, marketing, industrial application.•Availability of innovative low-cost camera made face analysis widely exploitable.•Low-cost camera metrological characterization is available but is not task-specific.•A face analysis-specific metrological characterization for low-cost camera is proposed.•The methodology is applied and demonstrated to a customer-grade camera relying on DOE.