1. A method of sending a facial image comprising the steps of: using a set of multiscale templates locating a point on said facial image with the highest correlation coefficient at the best scale as the location of the face; detecting facial features by template matching facial features to provide a set of points defining said facial feature locations; encoding said facial image into eigenface parameters including the steps of providing a training database of eigenfaces and performing eigenface decomposition of an input image by finding eigenvectors and eigenvalues of points in free space represented by a training set of images; transmitting and receiving said eigenvalues and said set of points defining said facial feature locations; providing at a receiver a three-dimensional generic model of a face; warping said generic face model using said set of points defining said facial feature locations; said warping step includes using an affine transform for a portion of said face and bilinear transform to warp a different portion of said face; decoding said facial image from eigenvalues to reconstruct the face image to define a texture image; said decoding including the step of providing said training database of eigenfaces; and mapping said texture image onto said warped three-dimensional face model to provide a synthesized facial image.