A method of performing automatic image registration for image guided surgery (IGS) is provided, the method including the steps of positioning a camera such that the patients face is visible to the camera, providing an initial guess of the patients head location by matching key facial landmarks on a rendered medical image to the patients face, scanning the facial surface area of the patient based on the initial guess, generating a registration point cloud based on the facial surface area used for 3D curvature and surface matching, wherein the facial surface area that is visible provides a minimum of three facial landmark points in the registration point cloud for accurate surface matching.