3-D Facial Animation Using Image Samples

Most established methods using three dimensional (3-D) computer graphics for human facial animation fall short of achieving truly realistic images, due to the lack of sufficient surface detail for the eyes, mouth and skin/hair textures. A new method is presented here, combining 3-D computer graphics with texture mapping techniques to synthesise and animate facial images which are convincing enough to be comparable with real video images. Animation is achieved by manipulation of a 3-D model of the subject’s face in conjunction with a set of pre-stored digitised image samples.