1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to computer animation. Specifically, the present invention is directed to customizing a computer animation wireframe with three-dimensional range and color data or with a two-dimensional representation and a depth map.
2. Introduction
Known systems can provide generic computer animations that integrate audio and visual information. For example, these generic computer animations typically display a talking head of a human or of a cartoon animal. These generic computer animations can be used for a number of applications.
For example, some known systems display the computer animation on a computer video monitor to interface with a human user. Other known systems can convert ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text into synthetic speech and synchronized talking-head video with realistic lip and jaw movements.
These known computer animations are based on generic animation wireframe models. Although these generic animation wireframe models are generic in the sense that the animations doe not represent a specific person; these generic models can be deformed according to a predefined set of parameters to vary the presentation from the one generic version. Deforming a generic animation wireframe model can be used to more closely resemble realistic and natural interactions, for example, human-to-human interactions. Deforming the generic model using a predefined set of parameters, however, cannot sufficiently modify the generic model to present actual people recognized by the viewer.
To produce more realistic and natural displays for human interactions, animation wireframe models should incorporate real measurements of the structure of the desired face, as well as color, shape and size. Such information can be obtained by a three-dimensional laser scanner system that scan a person's head to produce very dense range data and color data of the head.
Some known systems that incorporate measured three-dimensional information into generic animation wireframe models, however, suffer from several shortcomings. In general, accurately modifying generic animation wireframe models with measured three-dimensional range data requires extensive and expensive manual adjustments or automated computer-based adjustments. Manual adjustments of generic animation wireframe models can be time consuming and/or can require expensive human personal with specialized training. Automated adjustments of generic animation wireframe models can require expensive computer equipment that is generally cost-prohibitive for mass distribution and may require extensive maintenance performed by human personnel with specialized training.