Method for tracking head motion for 3D facial model animation from video stream

• US 20090153569A1
• Filed: 12/17/2008
• Published: 06/18/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: Park, Jeung Chul, Koo, Bon Ki, Lim, Seong Jae, Kim, Ho Won, Chu, Chang Woo, Park, Ji Young
• Application Number:
  US12/314,859
• Publication Number:
  US 20090153569A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/474
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/40 of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30201 Face
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/251 involving models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/277 involving stochastic approaches, e.g. using Kalman filters
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/62 relating to a temporal dimension, e.g. time-based feature extraction; Pattern tracking

Abstract

A head motion tracking method for three-dimensional facial model animation, the head motion tracking method includes acquiring initial facial motion to be fit to an image of a three-dimensional model from an image inputted by a video camera; creating a silhouette of the three-dimensional model and projecting the silhouette; matching the silhouette created from the three-dimensional model with a silhouette acquired by a statistical feature point tracking scheme; and obtaining a motion parameter for the image of the three-dimensional model through motion correction using a texture to perform three-dimensional head motion tracking. In accordance with the present invention, natural three-dimensional facial model animation based on a real image acquired with a video camera can be performed automatically, thereby reducing time and cost.

Claims

1. A head motion tracking method for three-dimensional facial model animation, the head motion tracking method comprising:

acquiring initial facial motion to be fit to an image of a three-dimensional model from an image inputted by a video camera;

creating a silhouette of the three-dimensional model and projecting the silhouette;

matching the silhouette created from the three-dimensional model with a silhouette acquired by a statistical feature point tracking scheme; and

obtaining a motion parameter for the image of the three-dimensional model through motion correction using a texture to perform three-dimensional head motion tracking.

2. The head motion tracking method of claim 1, wherein in the acquiring, feature points from the three-dimensional model and feature points from a two-dimensional image are selected and then matched to thereby calculate an initial motion parameter.

3. The head motion tracking method of claim 1, wherein in the creating and projecting, a visualization area of each face of a three-dimensional mesh is calculated to obtain the silhouette of the three-dimensional model at a present viewing angle, and then, the silhouette is projected to the image of the three dimensional model by using an internal or an external parameter, after performing camera correction.

4. The head motion tracking method of claim 1, wherein, in the matching, the silhouette of the three-dimensional model obtained using an initial parameter or a corrected parameter is matched with a two-dimensional silhouette obtained by a statistical tracking scheme to thereby obtain a motion parameter resulting in a smallest difference between the silhouettes.

5. The head motion tracking method of claim 1, wherein in the obtaining, a template is created using a present texture, and then, precise motion parameter correction is performed through template matching for a next image.