Face tracking and realistic animations for telecommunicant clones

Using realistic face models and photometric modeling techniques, we present a visual feedback loop that tracks a face - without any marker or controlled lighting - throughout a video sequence and precisely recovers the face position and orientation. We also propose animation techniques to embed realistic expressions in our 3D clones. Such face models permit automatic construction of appearance models. At the following web site you can view demos mentioned in this article : http://computer.org/multimedia/mu2000/u1034abs.htm Visual analysis-synthesis cooperations permit an efficient face tracking algorithm without any markers pasted on the user’s face and without any constraints or assumptions on the analyzed view such as the scene lighting, the camera’s internal and external parameters, and the face’s motion. ( View MPG file 1,741 kb) Simple model deformations (mesh animations, texture coordinate displacements, and texture animations) can be blended together to produce complex, realistic, and person-dependent facial expressions on our clones. (View MPG file 1,230 kb) Early experiments (without any stabilization postprocessings) concerning the analysis of real facial expressions and their reproduction on the corresponding clone.