Patent ID: 7483553
Filing Date: 2009-01-27
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: receiving a facial image; creating a line-drawing from the facial image; computing a set of semantic facial features from key points of a face in the facial image to describe a geometric shape of the face; comparing relationships among the semantic facial features to corresponding relationships between unexaggerated and exaggerated features in reference facial images and associated reference caricatures drawn by an artist and stored in a reference database; applying a kernel regression to select some of the semantic facial features in the facial image for caricature exaggeration and to exaggerate the semantic facial features into exaggerated features, wherein a nonlinear mapping between corresponding unexaggerated and exaggerated features in the reference database is learned via the kernel regression; selecting a relationship among facial features of the facial image to exaggerate based on a variance of the relationship from a norm derived from the reference facial images in the reference database, wherein relationships having relatively high variance from the norm are selected for exaggeration, wherein the selecting a relationship comprises: morphing the line-drawing into the exaggerated face shape to create a facial caricature, wherein: