Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.

Nevengineering, Inc.

Luciano Pasquale Agostino Nocera

Hartmut Neven

Thomas Maurer

Egor Valerievich Elagin

Johannes Bernhard Steffens

Ulrich Franz Buddemeier

David Westwood

James Stewartson

Randall Ho

Gregory Patrick Lane Lutter

The invention relates to a technique for generating an animated three-dimensional video head based on sensed locations of facial features and texture mapping of corresponding two dimensional video image frames onto a shaped head mesh generated using the sensed locations.

Method for generating an animated three-dimensional video head

The present invention is embodied in an apparatus, and related method, for sensing a person's facial movements, features and characteristics and the like to generate and animate an avatar image based on facial sensing. The avatar apparatus uses an image processing technique based on model graphs and bunch graphs that efficiently represent image features as jets. The jets are composed of wavelet transforms processed at node or landmark locations on an image corresponding to readily identifiable features. The nodes are acquired and tracked to animate an avatar image in accordance with the person's facial movements. Also, the facial sensing may use jet similarity to determine the person's facial features and characteristic thus allows tracking of a person's natural characteristics without any unnatural elements that may interfere or inhibit the person's natural characteristics.

Wavelet-based facial motion capture for avatar animation

The present invention is embodied in an apparatus, and related method, for detecting and recognizing an object in an image frame. The object may be, for example, a head having particular facial characteristics. The object detection process uses robust and computationally efficient techniques. The object identification and recognition process uses an image processing technique based on model graphs and bunch graphs that efficiently represent image features as jets. The jets are composed of wavelet transforms and are processed at nodes or landmark locations on an image corresponding to readily identifiable features. The system of the invention is particularly advantageous for recognizing a person over a wide variety of pose angles.

Face recognition from video images

Growing community of inventors

Los Angeles, CA, United States of America

Luciano Pasquale Agostino Nocera