Method and system for aligning natural and synthetic video to speech synthesis

• US 7,366,670 B1
• Filed: 08/11/2006
• Issued: 04/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/05/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ostermann, Joern, Beutnagel, Mark Charles, Basso, Andrea
• Primary Examiner(s): Lerner, Martin
• Application Number:
  US11/464,018
• Time in Patent Office: 627 Days
• Field of Search: 704/258, 704/260, 704/270, 704/278, 704/276, 345/473
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/001 Model-based coding, e.g. wire frame
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/06 Transformation of speech into a non-audible representation, e.g. speech visualisation or speech processing for tactile aids G10L15/26 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2368 Multiplexing of audio and video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4341 Demultiplexing of audio and video streams

Abstract

Facial animation in MPEG-4 can be driven by a text stream and a Facial Animation Parameters (FAP) stream. Text input is sent to a TTS converter that drives the mouth shapes of the face. FAPs are sent from an encoder to the face over the communication channel. Disclosed are codes bookmarks in the text string transmitted to the TTS converter. Bookmarks are placed between and inside words and carry an encoder time stamp. The encoder time stamp does not relate to real-world time. The FAP stream carries the same encoder time stamp found in the bookmark of the text. The system reads the bookmark and provides the encoder time stamp as well as a real-time time stamp to the facial animation system. The facial animation system associates the correct facial animation parameter with the real-time time stamp using the encoder time stamp of the bookmark as a reference.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to encode an animation comprising at least one animation mimic within a first stream and speech associated with a second stream, the instructions comprising:

assigning a predetermined code that points to an animation mimic within a first stream; and

synchronizing a second stream with the animation mimics stream by placing the predetermined code within the second stream.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first stream is an animation mimics stream and the second stream is a text stream.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the animation mimic is a facial mimic.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the predetermined code comprises an escape sequence followed by a plurality of bits, which define one of a set of possible animation mimics.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the instructions further comprise encoding the animation mimic stream and the text stream containing the predetermined code.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise placing the predetermined code in between words in the second stream.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise placing the predetermined code in between letters in the second stream.

8. A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to decode an animation including speech and at least one animation mimic, the instructions comprising:

monitoring a first stream for a predetermined code that points to an animation mimic within a second stream thereby indicating a synchronization relationship between the first stream and the second stream; and

sending a signal to a visual decoder to start the animation mimic that is pointed to by the predetermined code.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the first stream is a text stream and the second stream is an animation mimics stream.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the correspondence between the predetermined code and the animation mimic is established during an encoding process of the first stream.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the animation mimic is a facial mimic.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the first stream and the second stream are distinctly maintained streams.

13. A system for decoding at least one stream of data, the system comprising:

a module that monitors a first stream for a predetermined code that points to an animation mimic within a second stream thereby indicating a synchronization relationship between the first stream and the second stream; and

a module that sends a signal to a visual decoder to start the animation mimic that is pointed to by the predetermined code.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the first stream is a text stream and the second stream is an animation mimic stream.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the animation mimic is a facial mimic.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the first stream and the second stream are distinctly maintained streams.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the predetermined code is placed according to one of:

between words in the first stream, inside words in the first stream, or between phonemes within the first stream.