Expression invariant 3D face modeling from an RGB-D video

Abstract

We aim to reconstruct an accurate neutral 3D face model from an RGB-D video in the presence of extreme expression changes. Since each depth frame, taken by a low-cost sensor, is noisy, point clouds from multiple frames can be registered and aggregated to build an accurate 3D model. However, direct aggregation of multiple data produces erroneous results in natural interaction (e.g., talking and showing expressions). We propose to analyze facial expression from an RGB frame and neutralize the corresponding 3D point cloud if needed. We first estimate the person's expression by fitting blendshape coefficients using 2D facial landmarks for each frame and calculate an expression deformity (expression score). With the estimated expression score, we determine whether an input face is neutral or non-neutral. If the face is non-neutral, we proceed to neutralize the expression of the 3D point cloud in that frame. To neutralize the 3D point cloud of a face, we deform our generic 3D face model by applying the estimated blendshape coefficients, find displacement vectors from the deformed generic face to a neutral generic face, and apply the displacement vectors to the input 3D point cloud. After preprocessing frames in a video, we rank frames based on the expression scores and register the ranked frames into a single 3D model. Our system produces a neutral 3D face model in the presence of extreme expression changes even when neutral faces do not exist in the video.