A realistic facial animation suitable for human-robot interfacing

Abstract

In this paper an interactive and realistic facial animation oriented to human-computer interaction and social robotics is proposed. An initial model is obtained from a real face using a range scanner, and is then animated using a hierarchical skeleton oriented procedure. The rig structure is close to that of real facial muscular anatomy and the behavior follows the Facial Action Coding System. The resulting animated face is suitable for both real-time interfacing in human-machine interaction such as a social robot, and for helping in design and parametrization of android heads.