10,066 research outputs found
Facial Point Detection using Boosted Regression and Graph Models
Finding fiducial facial points in any frame of a video showing rich naturalistic facial behaviour is an unsolved problem. Yet this is a crucial step for geometric-featurebased facial expression analysis, and methods that use appearance-based features extracted at fiducial facial point locations. In this paper we present a method based on a combination of Support Vector Regression and Markov Random Fields to drastically reduce the time needed to search for a pointās location and increase the accuracy and robustness of the algorithm. Using Markov Random Fields allows us to constrain the search space by exploiting the constellations that facial points can form. The regressors on the other hand learn a mapping between the appearance of the area surrounding a point and the positions of these points, which makes detection of the points very fast and can make the algorithm robust to variations of appearance due to facial expression and moderate changes in head pose. The proposed point detection algorithm was tested on 1855 images, the results of which showed we outperform current state of the art point detectors
Most Likely Separation of Intensity and Warping Effects in Image Registration
This paper introduces a class of mixed-effects models for joint modeling of
spatially correlated intensity variation and warping variation in 2D images.
Spatially correlated intensity variation and warp variation are modeled as
random effects, resulting in a nonlinear mixed-effects model that enables
simultaneous estimation of template and model parameters by optimization of the
likelihood function. We propose an algorithm for fitting the model which
alternates estimation of variance parameters and image registration. This
approach avoids the potential estimation bias in the template estimate that
arises when treating registration as a preprocessing step. We apply the model
to datasets of facial images and 2D brain magnetic resonance images to
illustrate the simultaneous estimation and prediction of intensity and warp
effects
Capture, Learning, and Synthesis of 3D Speaking Styles
Audio-driven 3D facial animation has been widely explored, but achieving
realistic, human-like performance is still unsolved. This is due to the lack of
available 3D datasets, models, and standard evaluation metrics. To address
this, we introduce a unique 4D face dataset with about 29 minutes of 4D scans
captured at 60 fps and synchronized audio from 12 speakers. We then train a
neural network on our dataset that factors identity from facial motion. The
learned model, VOCA (Voice Operated Character Animation) takes any speech
signal as input - even speech in languages other than English - and
realistically animates a wide range of adult faces. Conditioning on subject
labels during training allows the model to learn a variety of realistic
speaking styles. VOCA also provides animator controls to alter speaking style,
identity-dependent facial shape, and pose (i.e. head, jaw, and eyeball
rotations) during animation. To our knowledge, VOCA is the only realistic 3D
facial animation model that is readily applicable to unseen subjects without
retargeting. This makes VOCA suitable for tasks like in-game video, virtual
reality avatars, or any scenario in which the speaker, speech, or language is
not known in advance. We make the dataset and model available for research
purposes at http://voca.is.tue.mpg.de.Comment: To appear in CVPR 201
Shape Completion using 3D-Encoder-Predictor CNNs and Shape Synthesis
We introduce a data-driven approach to complete partial 3D shapes through a
combination of volumetric deep neural networks and 3D shape synthesis. From a
partially-scanned input shape, our method first infers a low-resolution -- but
complete -- output. To this end, we introduce a 3D-Encoder-Predictor Network
(3D-EPN) which is composed of 3D convolutional layers. The network is trained
to predict and fill in missing data, and operates on an implicit surface
representation that encodes both known and unknown space. This allows us to
predict global structure in unknown areas at high accuracy. We then correlate
these intermediary results with 3D geometry from a shape database at test time.
In a final pass, we propose a patch-based 3D shape synthesis method that
imposes the 3D geometry from these retrieved shapes as constraints on the
coarsely-completed mesh. This synthesis process enables us to reconstruct
fine-scale detail and generate high-resolution output while respecting the
global mesh structure obtained by the 3D-EPN. Although our 3D-EPN outperforms
state-of-the-art completion method, the main contribution in our work lies in
the combination of a data-driven shape predictor and analytic 3D shape
synthesis. In our results, we show extensive evaluations on a newly-introduced
shape completion benchmark for both real-world and synthetic data
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