3D FACE RECONSTRUCTION FROM 2D IMAGES

• US 20080152213A1
• Filed: 07/25/2007
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: University of Southern California
• Original Assignee: Clone Interactive
• Inventors: FIDALEO, DOUGLAS, MEDIONI, GERARD
• Granted Patent: US 8,126,261 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30201 Face
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30244 Camera pose
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/55 from multiple images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/74 involving reference images or patches
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/647 by matching two-dimensional images to three-dimensional objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions

Abstract

A 3D face reconstruction technique using 2D images, such as photographs of a face, is described. Prior face knowledge or a generic face is used to extract sparse 3D information from the images and to identify image pairs. Bundle adjustment is carried out to determine more accurate 3D camera positions, image pairs are rectified, and dense 3D face information is extracted without using the prior face knowledge. Outliers are removed, e.g., by using tensor voting. A 3D surface is extracted from the dense 3D information and surface detail is extracted from the images.

Claims

1. A face reconstruction method, comprising:

analyzing a plurality of images of a face to find sparse, three-dimensional face features using prior knowledge of a face; and

using said sparse three-dimensional face features to analyze said plurality of images, to find dense three-dimensional features using a data driven approach, without using any prior knowledge.