System and method for triphone-based unit selection for visual speech synthesis
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- receiving text for conversion to speech;
calculating a target cost of a target sequence of tri-phones associated with the speech based on a phonetic distance, a coarticulation parameter, and a speech rate of the speech, to yield a calculated target cost;
identifying, based on the calculated target cost and following phonemes associated with a plurality of tri-phones, a plurality of candidate tri-phones;
sampling each candidate tri-phone in the plurality of candidate tri-phones to identify how many frames are associated with the each candidate tri-phone;
adding, where necessary, at least one frame to frames in the each candidate tri-phone of the plurality of candidate tri-phones to reach a same number of frames as in a corresponding tri-phone in the target sequence of tri-phones, to yield an updated candidate tri-phone;
building a video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein each candidate video frame in the candidate video frames is associated with a tri-phone comprising one of the updated candidate tri-phone or another tri-phone from the plurality of candidate tri-phones;
determining image coefficients for each frame in the video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein the image coefficients for the each frame are based on a turning point of the updated candidate tri-phone, the turning point being a change of direction in a mouth of a speaker pronouncing the updated candidate tri-phone;
assigning a joint cost to each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice, where the joint cost is based on the image coefficients and geometric features of the each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice; and
constructing a video sequence of the mouth of the speaker moving in synchronization with the speech by finding, using a Viterbi search, a path through the video frame lattice based on a minimum of a sum of the calculated target cost and the joint cost over the video sequence.
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Abstract
A system and method for generating a video sequence having mouth movements synchronized with speech sounds are disclosed. The system utilizes a database of n-phones as the smallest selectable unit, wherein n is larger than 1 and preferably 3. The system calculates a target cost for each candidate n-phone for a target frame using a phonetic distance, coarticulation parameter, and speech rate. For each n-phone in a target sequence, the system searches for candidate n-phones that are visually similar according to the target cost. The system samples each candidate n-phone to get a same number of frames as in the target sequence and builds a video frame lattice of candidate video frames. The system assigns a joint cost to each pair of adjacent frames and searches the video frame lattice to construct the video sequence by finding the optimal path through the lattice according to the minimum of the sum of the target cost and the joint cost over the sequence.
25 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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receiving text for conversion to speech; calculating a target cost of a target sequence of tri-phones associated with the speech based on a phonetic distance, a coarticulation parameter, and a speech rate of the speech, to yield a calculated target cost; identifying, based on the calculated target cost and following phonemes associated with a plurality of tri-phones, a plurality of candidate tri-phones; sampling each candidate tri-phone in the plurality of candidate tri-phones to identify how many frames are associated with the each candidate tri-phone; adding, where necessary, at least one frame to frames in the each candidate tri-phone of the plurality of candidate tri-phones to reach a same number of frames as in a corresponding tri-phone in the target sequence of tri-phones, to yield an updated candidate tri-phone; building a video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein each candidate video frame in the candidate video frames is associated with a tri-phone comprising one of the updated candidate tri-phone or another tri-phone from the plurality of candidate tri-phones; determining image coefficients for each frame in the video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein the image coefficients for the each frame are based on a turning point of the updated candidate tri-phone, the turning point being a change of direction in a mouth of a speaker pronouncing the updated candidate tri-phone; assigning a joint cost to each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice, where the joint cost is based on the image coefficients and geometric features of the each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice; and constructing a video sequence of the mouth of the speaker moving in synchronization with the speech by finding, using a Viterbi search, a path through the video frame lattice based on a minimum of a sum of the calculated target cost and the joint cost over the video sequence. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A computing device comprising:
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a processor; and a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, perform operations comprising; receiving text for conversion to speech; calculating a target cost of a target sequence of tri-phones associated with the speech based on a phonetic distance, a coarticulation parameter, and a speech rate of the speech, to yield a calculated target cost; identifying, based on the calculated target cost and following phonemes associated with a plurality of tri-phones, a plurality of candidate tri-phones; sampling each candidate tri-phone in the plurality of candidate tri-phones to identify how many frames are associated with the each candidate tri-phone; adding, where necessary, at least one frame to frames in the each candidate tri-phone of the plurality of candidate tri-phones to reach a same number of frames as in a corresponding tri-phone in the target sequence of tri-phones, to yield an updated candidate tri-phone; building a video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein each candidate video frame in the candidate video frames is associated with a tri-phone comprises one of the updated candidate tri-phone or another tri-phone from the plurality of candidate tri-phones; determining image coefficients for each frame in the video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein the image coefficients for the each frame are based on a turning point of the updated candidate tri-phone, the turning point being a change of direction in a mouth of a speaker pronouncing the updated candidate tri-phone; assigning a joint cost to each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice, where the joint cost is based on the image coefficients and geometric features of the each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice; and constructing a video sequence of the mouth of the speaker moving in synchronization with the speech by finding, using a Viterbi search, a path through the video frame lattice based on a minimum of a sum of the calculated target cost and the joint cost over the video sequence. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored, which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
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receiving text for conversion to speech; calculating a target cost of a target sequence of tri-phones associated with the speech based on a phonetic distance, a coarticulation parameter, and a speech rate of the speech, to yield a calculated target cost; identifying, based on the calculated target cost and following phonemes associated with a plurality of tri-phones, a plurality of candidate tri-phones; sampling each candidate tri-phone in the plurality of candidate tri-phones to identify how many frames are associated with the each candidate tri-phone; adding at least one frame to at least one candidate tri-phone to reach a same number of frames as in a corresponding tri-phone in the target sequence of tri-phones, to yield updated candidate tri-phones; building a video frame lattice of candidate video frames, wherein each candidate video frame in the candidate video frames is associated with an updated candidate tri-phone in the updated candidate tri-phones; determining image coefficients for each frame in the video frame lattice, wherein the image coefficients for the each frame are based on a turning point of the updated candidate tri-phone associated with the each frame, the turning point being a change of direction in a mouth of a speaker pronouncing the updated candidate tri-phone; assigning a joint cost to each pair of adjacent video frames in the video frame lattice, where the joint cost is based on the image coefficients and geometric features of the each pair of adjacent video frames; and constructing a video sequence of a mouth moving in synchronization with the speech by finding, using a Viterbi search, a path through the video frame lattice based on a minimum of a sum of the calculated target cost and the joint cost over the video sequence. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17)
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Specification