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Online interaction with 3D facial animation & an alternative way of face-to-face communication for distance education. 3D facial modeling is essential for virtual educational environments establishment. This article presents a novel 3D facial modeling solution that facilitates quasi-facial communication for online learning. Our algorithm builds 3D facial models from a single image, with support of a 3D face database. First from the image, we extract a set of feature points, which are then used to automatically estimate the head pose parameters using the 3D mean face in our database as a reference model. After the pose recovery, a similarity measurement function is proposed to locate the neighborhood for the given image in the 3D face database. The scope of neighborhood can be determined adaptively using our cross-validation algorithm. Furthermore, the individual 3D shape is synthesized by neighborhood interpolation. Texture mapping is achieved based on feature points. The experimental results show that our algorithm can robustly produce 3D facial models from images captured in various scenarios to enhance the lifelikeness in distant learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese brush calligraphy is a valuable civilization legacy and a high art of scholarship. It is still popular in Chinese banners, newspaper mastheads, university names, and celebration gifts. There are Web sites that try to help people enjoy and learn Chinese calligraphy. However, there lacks advanced services such as content-based retrieval or vivid writing process simulation for calligraphy learning. This article proposes a novel Chinese calligraphy learning approach: First, the scanned calligraphy pages were segmented into individual calligraphy characters using minimum-bounding box. Second, the individual character's feature information was extracted and kept. Then, a corresponding database was built to serve as a map between the feature data and the original raw data. Finally, a retrieval engine was constructed and a dynamic writing process was simulated to help learners get the calligraphy character they were interested in and watch how it was generated step by step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]