Method for generating an animated three-dimensional video head

• US 20030031381A1
• Filed: 08/13/2001
• Published: 02/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nevengineering Incorporated
• Inventors: Neven, Hartmut, Lutter, Gregory Patrick Lane, Stewartson, James, Westwood, David, Ho, Randall, Nocera, Luciano Pasquale Agostino, Buddemeier, Ulrich F.
• Granted Patent: US 7,050,655 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/285
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/40 of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/04 Texture mapping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20064 Wavelet transform [DWT]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30201 Face
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/246 using feature-based methods, e.g. the tracking of corners or segments

Abstract

The invention relates to a technique for generating an animated three-dimensional video head based on sensed locations of facial features and texture mapping of corresponding two dimensional video image frames onto a shaped head mesh generated using the sensed locations.

Claims

1. A method for generating a three-dimensional animated video head, comprising steps for:

capturing a sequence of two-dimensional video image frames of the face of an actor, for each video image frame;

sensing the locations of the actor'"'"'s facial features at predetermined node locations, wherein each node location is associated with a particular facial feature;

driving control points on a three-dimensional head mesh based on the sensed node locations to generate a shaped three-dimensional head mesh;

warping the video image frame used to generate the sensed node location for projection onto the shaped head mesh; and

texture mapping the warped video image frame onto the shaped head mesh to generate a three-dimensional frame head associated with the respective video image frame; and

animating the three-dimensional video head by displaying a sequence of the three-dimensional frame heads associated with the sequence of video image frames.

2. Method for generating a three-dimensional animated video head as defined in claim 1, wherein the step of sensing the locations of the facial features in the sequence of video image frames is performed using transformed facial image frames generated based on wavelet transformations.

3. Method for generating a three-dimensional animated video head as defined in claim 1, wherein the step of sensing the locations of the facial features in the sequence of video image frames is performed using transformed facial image frames generated based on Gabor wavelet transformations.