A segment-based stereo vision system has been modified to reconstruct 3D facial models. Because usually it is difficult to get enough edges to reconstruct a 3D facial model with edge-based stereo algorithms, most research on 3D face model is based on correlation stereo algorithms, even though these algorithms are often time-consuming. We present a fast 3D face reconstruction algorithm using iso-luminance lines from stereo images, which is effective even when only a few edges can be detected. We also introduce a very efficient algorithm to search for irises in 3D space, which can then be used to identify the face position and direction. Our experiments show that our 3D facial model is suitable for 3D face recognition.