Rapid modeling of animated faces from video

Generating realistic 3D human face models and facial animations has been a persistent challenge in computer graphics. We have developed a system that constructs textured 3D face models from videos with minimal user interaction. Our system takes images and video sequences of a face with an ordinary video camera. After five manual clicks on two images to tell the system where the eye corners, nose top and mouth corners are, the system automatically generates a realistic looking 3D human head model and the constructed model can be animated immediately. A user with a PC and an ordinary camera can use our system to generate his/her face model in a few minutes. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.