Uncertainties-driven Surface Morphing: The case of Photo-realistic Transitions between Facial Expressions

Reproduction of facial animation play a fundamental role in applications requiring human-computer interactions. The objective of this paper is to introduce a geometric mechanism that exploits a fix number of states and is able to execute a subsequent number of transitions between facial expressions. Standard stereo-based techniques are used to reproduce the geometry and appearance of the most characteristic facial expressions. A novel free-form-deformation technique based on uncertainty driven local geometric registration in the space of distance transforms is used to produce a one-to-one mapping between the surfaces and the associated textures. Standard techniques from image morphing introduce the temporal aspect in the process. Experimental results and comparisons with actual observation demonstrate the potentials of such an approach