Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/C53879X/1
Title:	Dynamic Faces: Understanding the Dynamics of Real Faces
Principal Investigator:	Hilton, Professor A
Other Investigators:	Jackson, Dr P
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	Anthropics Technology Ltd
Department:	Vision Speech and Signal Proc CVSSP
Organisation:	University of Surrey
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 November 2005	Ends:	31 March 2009	Value (£):	254,130
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Image & Vision Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Creative Industries
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Visual face dynamics provide important verbal and non-verbal cues for person-to-person communication. Research in automatic visual speech synthesis has focused on static representations of mouth shape, 'visemes' which correspond to phoneme articulations. Static visemes do not represent the dynamics of speech, coarticulation or non-verbal cues. This results in unacceptably artificial animation of real faces which inhibits visual communication. The aim of this proposal is to make a step change in the state-of-the-art from static to dynamic 3D representations of real faces for realistic animation. Recent research by the investigators has introduced the first 3D video system allowing simultaneous video-rate capture of high-resolution face shape and colour appearance. 3D video of real faces will allow the proposed research to understand and model real 3D facial dynamics. Key scientific objectives are:Identification of a primary set of 'dynamic visemes' which characterise real facial dynamics during speech.Statistical modelling of real facial dynamics for realistic visual synthesis driven by speech.The goal is to learn statistical models of real facial dynamics which achieve voice-driven animation of a persons face which is as realistic as the real person. Believable animation of real faces from speech will enable effective visual communication for teleconferencing, provide visual aids for people with hearing loss and support realistic animation in entertainment production for film, broadcast and games.
Key Findings
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Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.surrey.ac.uk