Patent ID: 7289124

Claim:
A method of animating, by use of modelled facial muscles, a head imaged in three dimensions and acquired in a data processing arrangement in the form of sets of meshes including a set of lips, said method including the steps of: distinguishing a lower lip and an upper lip in said set of lips as a function of mesh nodes at the level of a lip corner and mouth opening boundary, the distinguishing step including: (a) identifying mesh nodes at the periphery of said set of lips to define an interior contour and an exterior contour of said lips, (b) detecting laterally outermost mesh nodes on said interior contour and exterior contour, (c) marking mesh nodes below one of lip corner segments defined by the nodes previously detected as belonging to said lower lip, (d) recursively marking all the unmarked mesh nodes, starting with nodes near a lower node of said lower lip, as belonging to said lower lip, and (e) marking all the other unmarked nodes in said set of lips not belonging to said lower lip as belonging to said upper lip, determining an upper zone and a lower zone of said head substantially shared by at least a lip corner and mouth opening boundary between the mesh nodes belonging to said lower lip and the mesh nodes belonging to said upper lip, and providing a first group of modelled muscles extending toward said upper lip and having zones of influence intersecting at least two by two situated in said upper zone for displacing mesh nodes in said upper lip and under a nose of said head, a second group of modelled muscles extending toward said lower lip and having zones of influence intersecting at least two by two situated in said lower zone for displacing mesh nodes in said lower lip and in a chin of said head, and a last group of modelled muscles having zones of influence for displacing each of the mesh nodes in said upper zone and lower zone in order to stretch and contract said lips.