MPEG-4 Based Facial Expression Image Morphing
基于MPEG-4的人脸表情图像变形研究

Human face morphing is the foundation of facial expression synthesis and talking avatar animation. In this paper, an MPEG-4 based method for human face morphing and expression synthesis is proposed. The method uses a picture of neutral human face and a group of face animation parameters (FAP)as input, and the output is a corresponding facial expression image. There are four stages: facial feature point extraction, mesh generation for specific human face, mesh points movement driven by FAPs, and face texture mapping. After these four stages, photos of various facial expressions are created. Novel algorithms are also implemented for eyeball movement and texture mapping inside the mouth. Perceptual evaluation shows that the face morphing method can synthesize realistic and natural facial expressions for various human face models of different genders, ages and races. Meanwhile, this method is real-time, so it can be used in the areas of video processing and facial animation.