Real-time speech-driven face animation with expressions using neural networks

A real-time speech-driven synthetic talking face provides an effective multimodal communication interface in distributed collaboration environments. Nonverbal gestures such as facial expressions are important to human communication and should be considered by speech-driven face animation systems. In this paper, we present a framework that systematically addresses facial deformation modeling, automatic facial motion analysis, and real-time speech-driven face animation with expression using neural networks. Based on this framework, we learn a quantitative visual representation of the facial deformations, called the motion units (MUs). A facial deformation can be approximated by a linear combination of the MUs weighted by MU parameters (MUPs). We develop an MU-based facial motion tracking algorithm which is used to collect an audio-visual training database. Then, we construct a real-time audio-to-MUP mapping by training a set of neural networks using the collected audio-visual training database. The quantitative evaluation of the mapping shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Using the proposed method, we develop the functionality of real-time speech-driven face animation with expressions for the iFACE system. Experimental results show that the synthetic expressive talking face of the iFACE system is comparable with a real face in terms of the effectiveness of their influences on bimodal human emotion perception.     

Superimposed training for channel estimation of OFDM modulated amplify-and-forward relay networks

This paper is concerned with the problem of channel estimation for amplify-and-forward （AF） cooperative relay networks with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （OFDM） modulation. The algorithm is based on both the least square （LS） and minimum mean square error （MMSE） technique with a superimposed training strategy. Specifically, both the source and relay superimpose their own training signal onto data stream prior to transmission so as to estimate the separate channel state information of the source to relay link and the relay to destination link. We also present the performance analysis and derive the approximated closed-form expressions for the MSE of separate channel estimation of source to relay link and the relay to destination link, respectively, from which we compute the optimal training signal as well as the relay power-amplification factor. To further improve the performance of channel estimation, we adopt a weighted average process to enhance the estimation performance over multiple OFDM blocks, from which we compute the optimal tracking factor. Simulation results are provided to corroborate the proposed scheme.     

全自动的基于MPEG-4的任意拓扑结构人脸动画

构造任意拓扑结构人脸网格的人脸动画定义表是基于MPEG-4的任意拓扑结构人脸动画系统的关键．通过搜索三维模型的二维纹理图像特征，提出一种自动地在任意拓扑结构三维人脸模型上定位特征点的方法．通过利用任意拓扑结构人脸模型上的三维特征点变形标准人脸模型，并根据标准人脸模型的动画定义表，实现了自动、准确地构造任意拓扑结构人脸模型动画定义表的方法．给定一个任意拓扑结构三维人脸模型，通过文中方法可以全自动地驱动所给人脸模型做动画．     

Facial deblur inference using subspace analysis for recognition of blurred faces

This paper proposes a novel method for recognizing faces degraded by blur using deblurring of facial images. The main issue is how to infer a Point Spread Function (PSF) representing the process of blur on faces. Inferring a PSF from a single facial image is an ill-posed problem. Our method uses learned prior information derived from a training set of blurred faces to make the problem more tractable. We construct a feature space such that blurred faces degraded by the same PSF are similar to one another. We learn statistical models that represent prior knowledge of predefined PSF sets in this feature space. A query image of unknown blur is compared with each model and the closest one is selected for PSF inference. The query image is deblurred using the PSF corresponding to that model and is thus ready for recognition. Experiments on a large face database (FERET) artificially degraded by focus or motion blur show that our method substantially improves the recognition performance compared to existing methods. We also demonstrate improved performance on real blurred images on the FRGC 1.0 face database. Furthermore, we show and explain how combining the proposed facial deblur inference with the local phase quantization (LPQ) method can further enhance the performance.     

基于MPEG-4的人脸表情图像变形研究

为了实时地生成自然真实的人脸表情,提出了一种基于MPEG-4人脸动画框架的人脸表情图像变形方法。该方法首先采用face alignment工具提取人脸照片中的88个特征点;接着在此基础上,对标准人脸网格进行校准变形,以进一步生成特定人脸的三角网格;然后根据人脸动画参数（FAP）移动相应的面部关键特征点及其附近的关联特征点,并在移动过程中保证在多个FAP的作用下的人脸三角网格拓扑结构不变;最后对发生形变的所有三角网格区域通过仿射变换进行面部纹理填充,生成了由FAP所定义的人脸表情图像。该方法的输入是一张中性人脸照片和一组人脸动画参数,输出是对应的人脸表情图像。为了实现细微表情动作和虚拟说话人的合成,还设计了一种眼神表情动作和口内细节纹理的生成算法。基于5分制（MOS）的主观评测实验表明,利用该人脸图像变形方法生成的表情脸像自然度得分为3.67。虚拟说话人合成的实验表明,该方法具有很好的实时性,在普通PC机上的平均处理速度为66.67 fps,适用于实时的视频处理和人脸动画的生成。     

基于双相机捕获面部表情及人体姿态生成三维虚拟人动画

为了生成表情丰富、动作流畅的三维虚拟人动画,提出了一种基于双相机同步捕获面部表情及人体姿态生成三维虚拟人动画的方法。首先,采用传输控制协议（TCP）网络时间戳方法实现双相机时间同步,采用张正友标定法实现双相机空间同步。然后,利用双相机分别采集面部表情和人体姿态。采集面部表情时,提取图像的2D特征点,利用这些2D特征点回归计算得到面部行为编码系统（FACS）面部行为单元,为实现表情动画做准备;以标准头部3D坐标值为基准,根据相机内参,采用高效n点投影（EPnP）算法实现头部姿态估计;之后将面部表情信息和头部姿态估计信息进行匹配。采集人体姿态时,利用遮挡鲁棒姿势图（ORPM）方法计算人体姿态,输出每个骨骼点位置、旋转角度等数据。最后,在虚幻引擎4（UE4）中使用建立的虚拟人体三维模型来展示数据驱动动画的效果。实验结果表明,该方法能够同步捕获面部表情及人体姿态,而且在实验测试中的帧率达到20 fps,能实时生成自然真实的三维动画。     

A Video-Based Facial Motion Tracking and Expression Recognition System

We proposed a facial motion tracking and expression recognition system based on video data. By a 3D deformable facial model, the online statistical model (OSM) and cylinder head model (CHM) were combined to track 3D facial motion in the framework of particle filtering. For facial expression recognition, a fast and efficient algorithm and a robust and precise algorithm were developed. With the first, facial animation and facial expression were retrieved sequentially. After that facial animation was obtained, facial expression was recognized by static facial expression knowledge learned from anatomical analysis. With the second, facial animation and facial expression were simultaneously retrieved to increase the reliability and robustness with noisy input data. Facial expression was recognized by fusing static and dynamic facial expression knowledge, the latter of which was learned by training a multi-class expressional Markov process using a video database. The experiments showed that facial motion tracking by OSM+CHM is more pose robust than that by OSM, and the facial expression score of the robust and precise algorithm is higher than those of other state-of-the-art facial expression recognition methods.     

人脸序列图象的头部运动参数估计

在人脸序列的图象编码中 ,由于模型基编码方法可以获得高的主观图象质量和低的码率 ,因而受到广泛重视 .但是 ,其运动参数的可靠估计还是一个难点 .为此 ,该文分析了头部运动的特点 ,并把它分为头部刚体运动、脸部表情的简单运动和脸部表情复杂运动 3种形式 .其中 ,提取头部刚体运动参数利用了基于特征点对的运动参数估计算法 ,并提出了一个线性的实现方法 ;文中还指出提高运动参数估计的精度在于选择合适的特征点和建立一个和特定人脸相一致的三维线框模型 ;另外 ,还为脸部表情的简单运动建立了形变矩阵 ;最后给出了用面积误差函数评价的运动参数估计误差 .     

Geometry-driven photorealistic facial expression synthesis

Expression mapping (also called performance driven animation) has been a popular method for generating facial animations. A shortcoming of this method is that it does not generate expression details such as the wrinkles due to skin deformations. In this paper, we provide a solution to this problem. We have developed a geometry-driven facial expression synthesis system. Given feature point positions (the geometry) of a facial expression, our system automatically synthesizes a corresponding expression image that includes photorealistic and natural looking expression details. Due to the difficulty of point tracking, the number of feature points required by the synthesis system is, in general, more than what is directly available from a performance sequence. We have developed a technique to infer the missing feature point motions from the tracked subset by using an example-based approach. Another application of our system is expression editing where the user drags feature points while the system interactively generates facial expressions with skin deformation details.     

Facial animation retargeting and control based on a human appearance space

Expressive facial animations are essential to enhance the realism and the credibility of virtual characters. Parameter‐based animation methods offer a precise control over facial configurations while performance‐based animation benefits from the naturalness of captured human motion. In this paper, we propose an animation system that gathers the advantages of both approaches. By analyzing a database of facial motion, we create the human appearance space. The appearance space provides a coherent and continuous parameterization of human facial movements, while encapsulating the coherence of real facial deformations. We present a method to optimally construct an analogous appearance face for a synthetic character. The link between both appearance spaces makes it possible to retarget facial animation on a synthetic face from a video source. Moreover, the topological characteristics of the appearance space allow us to detect the principal variation patterns of a face and automatically reorganize them on a low‐dimensional control space. The control space acts as an interactive user‐interface to manipulate the facial expressions of any synthetic face. This interface makes it simple and intuitive to generate still facial configurations for keyframe animation, as well as complete temporal sequences of facial movements. The resulting animations combine the flexibility of a parameter‐based system and the realism of real human motion. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A video prediction approach for animating single face image

Generating dynamic 2D image-based facial expressions is a challenging task for facial animation. Much research work focused on performance-driven facial animation from given videos or images of a target face, while animating a single face image driven by emotion labels is a less explored problem. In this work, we treat the task of animating single face image from emotion labels as a conditional video prediction problem, and propose a novel framework by combining factored conditional restricted boltzmann machines (FCRBM) and reconstruction contractive auto-encoder (RCAE). A modified RCAE with an associated efficient training strategy is used to extract low dimensional features and reconstruct face images. FCRBM is used as animator to predict facial expression sequence in the feature space given discrete emotion labels and a frontal neutral face image as input. Both quantitative and qualitative evaluations on two facial expression databases, and comparison to state-of-the-art showed the effectiveness of our proposed framework for animating frontal neutral face image from given emotion labels.

     

基于特征识别的3维人脸动画模型自动构造

针对3维人脸动画应用中,需要手工事先标定肌肉模型的控制点、工作区域和设置各种计算参数,造成工作量大、修改困难、移植性差等弊端,提出自动构造各种肌肉模型及确定它们计算参数的方法。研究工作包括:综合运用法向量变化率、高斯曲率、高斯纹理模型等参数研究3维人脸几何及纹理特征的快速检测方法;设计基于邻域生长和候选点聚类分析的识别算法来识别人脸五官部位的特征点;在此基础上,自动确定各种肌肉模型的位置结构、工作区域和计算参数,实现人脸动画所需的肌肉模型构造和装配的自动化。应用工作结果表明,基于特征识别的3维人脸动画肌肉模型自动构造方法移植性好、精度较高,提高了动画建模工作的效率。     

基于机构学和肌肉模型的单视频驱动人脸情感表达仿真

描述一种3维人脸模型的单视频驱动方法。该方法在传统肌肉模型的基础上,根据嘴部运动特性采用机构学原理建立嘴部运动控制模型,通过视频图像序列跟踪得到特征点的运动规律曲线,进而驱动眼部、嘴部及面部其他部分的网格点运动,产生具有真实感的面部表情动作。仿真结果表明,采用此方法可以得到逼真的人脸表情模拟动画。     

A data mining approach to face detection

In this paper, we propose a novel face detection method based on the MAFIA algorithm. Our proposed method consists of two phases, namely, training and detection. In the training phase, we first apply Sobel's edge detection operator, morphological operator, and thresholding to each training image, and transform it into an edge image. Next, we use the MAFIA algorithm to mine the maximal frequent patterns from those edge images and obtain the positive feature pattern. Similarly, we can obtain the negative feature pattern from the complements of edge images. Based on the feature patterns mined, we construct a face detector to prune non-face candidates. In the detection phase, we apply a sliding window to the testing image in different scales. For each sliding window, if the slide window passes the face detector, it is considered as a human face. The proposed method can automatically find the feature patterns that capture most of facial features. By using the feature patterns to construct a face detector, the proposed method is robust to races, illumination, and facial expressions. The experimental results show that the proposed method has outstanding performance in the MIT-CMU dataset and comparable performance in the BioID dataset in terms of false positive and detection rate.     

自适应人脸语音动画技术

介绍了一个基于特征多边形网格模型和肌肉模型的人脸语音动画系统。首先从3D MAX导出的ASE文件建立人脸多边形网格模型,在四边形网格中定义了眼睛、鼻子、眉毛、额头、面颊、上下颚等特征点。基于特征点把人脸网格模型构造为线性弹性模型,并进行纹理贴图,最后在建立的肌肉模型基础上实现人脸语音动画。     

面向移动数字娱乐的卡通人脸动画系统

给出了一个移动平台下的卡通人脸动画系统,其输入是一张二维真实人脸照片和一段文本,输出为具有娱乐效果的手机卡通人脸动画。首先,根据输入的照片生成人物的卡通肖像,采用了基于特征发现的卡通人脸肖像生成方法。其次,在卡通肖像的基础上结合文本驱动产生卡通人脸动画。最后,将系统移植到移动平台,在手机上播放卡通人脸动画,该系统在局域网和PDA上具有很好的娱乐动画效果。     

基于Kinect与网格几何变形的人脸表情动画

面部表情重建的实时性与重建效果的真实性是人脸表情动画的关键问题,提出一种基于Kinect人脸追踪和几何变形技术的面部表情快速重建新方法。使用微软的Kinect设备识别出表演者面部并记录其特征点数据,并利用捕捉到的特征点建立覆盖人脸的网格模型,从中选取变形使用的控制点数据,由于Kinect可以实时地自动追踪表演者面部,由此实现了利用三种不同变形算法对目标模型实时快速重建。实验结果表明,该方法简单易实施,不用在表演者面部做任何标定,可以自动地将人脸表情动作迁移到目标模型上,实现人脸表情快速重建,并且保证目标模型表情真实自然。     

面向纹理特征的真实感三维人脸动画方法

纹理变化是人脸表情的重要组成部分，传统的人脸动画方法通常只是对纹理图像做简单的拉伸变换，没有考虑人脸细微纹理特征的变化，比如皱纹、酒窝等，该文提出了一种面向纹理特征变化的真实感三维人脸动画方法．给出局部表情比率图(Partial Expression Ratio Image，PERI)的概念及其获取方法，在此基础上，进一步给出了面向MPEG-4的PERI参数化与面向三维人脸动画的多方向PERI方法，前者通过有机结合MPEG-4的人脸动画参数(Facial Anlmation Parameter，FAP)，实现人脸动画中细微表情特征的参数化表示；后者通过多方向PERI纹理特征调整方法，使得三维人脸模型在不同角度都具有较好的细微表情特征,该文提出的方法克服了传统人脸动画只考虑人脸曲面形变控制而忽略纹理变化的缺陷，实现面向纹理变化的具有细微表情特征的真实感三维人脸动画，实验表明，该文提出的方法能有效捕捉纹理变化细节，提高人脸动画的真实感。     

基于颜色和特征匹配的视频图像人脸检测实现技术

A face detection method using statistical skin-color model and facial feature matching is presented in this paper.According to skin-color distribution in YUV color space,we develope a statistical skin-color model through interactive sample training and learning.Using this method we convert the color image to binary image and then segment face-candidate regions in the video images.In order to improve the quality of binary image and remove unwanted noises,filtering and mathematical morphology are empolied.After these two processing,we use facial feature matching for further detection.The presence or absence of a face in each region is verified by means of mouth detector based on a template matching method.The experimental results show the proposed method has the features of high speed and high efficiency,but also robust to face variation to some extent.So it is suitable to be applied to real-time face detection and tracking in video sequences.     

A statistical parametric approach to video-realistic text-driven talking avatar

This paper proposes a statistical parametric approach to video-realistic text-driven talking avatar. We follow the trajectory HMM approach where audio and visual speech are jointly modeled by HMMs and continuous audiovisual speech parameter trajectories are synthesized based on the maximum likelihood criterion. Previous trajectory HMM approaches only focus on mouth animation, which synthesizes simple geometric mouth shapes or video-realistic effects of the lip motion. Our approach uses trajectory HMM to generate visual parameters of the lower face and it realizes video-realistic animation of the whole face. Specifically, we use active appearance model (AAM) to model the visual speech, which offers a convenient and compact statistical model of both the shape and the appearance variations of the face. To realize video-realistic effects with high fidelity, we use Poisson image editing technique to stitch the synthesized lower-face image to a whole face image seamlessly. Objective and subjective experiments show that the proposed approach can produce natural facial animation.