Patent ID: 6332123
Filing Date: 2001-12-18
Classification: G06T,G10L

Abstract:
A picture synthesizing method for synthesizing a moving picture of a person's face having mouth-shape variations from a train of input characters,comprising the steps of:developing from the train of input characters a train of phonemes, utilizing a speech synthesis technique outputting, for each phoneme, a corresponding vocal sound feature including articulation mode and its duration of each corresponding phoneme of the train of phonemes;determining for each phoneme a mouth-shape feature corresponding to each phoneme on the basis of the corresponding vocal sound feature, said mouth-shape feature including the degree of opening of the mouth, the degree of roundness of the lips, the height of the lower jaw in a raised and a lowered position, and the degree to which the tongue is seen,determining values of mouth-shape parameters, for each phoneme, for representing a concrete mouth-shape on the basis of the mouth-shape feature; andcontrolling the values of the mouth-shape parameters, for each phoneme, for each frame of the moving picture in accordance with the duration of each phoneme, thereby synthesizing the moving picture having mouth-shape variations matched with a speech output audible in case of reading the train of input characters.