Developing a Parametric 3D Face Model Editing Algorithm

In the fields of computer graphics and computer vision, a great amount of research and analysis has been conducted on expression-carrying face models. How to construct more realistic and effective 3D face models has become an immense challenge to researchers. This paper proposes a parametric 3D face model editing algorithm based on existing 3D face models. The algorithm takes a number of existing 3D face models with different expressions as input, edits the models through mostly through model deformation and interpolation, and generates a new 3D face model. In particular, the face model editing process begins with selecting multiple face models with different expressions as input. Second, with one of the selected models as the source model and others as the target models, the source model and all target models are registered one by one; meanwhile, the vertex correspondence between the registered models is established. Third, the selected 3D models are parameterized to a planar disc through quasi-conformal mapping. Fourth, relying on the vertex correspondence, a set of corresponding control points between different models are established. The model is then deformed and interpolated under the guidance of the control points and by using the quasi-conformal iteration method, which produces the 2D face models with transitional expressions between the source model and the target models. Finally, the 2D models are restored to the corresponding 3D face models using the model restoration algorithm. Additionally, this paper proposes to use the Beltrami coefficient to guide the quasi-conformal iteration in performing the mapping between two planes. This coefficient then serves as a measure to evaluate the similarity between the edited model and the original one. The proposed algorithm has been evaluated through extensive experiments. The results suggest that compared with existing editing methods, the proposed method is more effective and efficient in constructing various 3D face models.