Patent Document ID: 20160093284
Application ID: 14496832
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. An apparatus for use in an articulatory-based text-to-speech conversion system to establish an articulatory speech synthesis model of a person's voice, the apparatus comprising: a facial structure input device to acquire image data representing a visage of a person, in which the visage includes facial characteristics defining exteriorly visible articulatory speech synthesis model parameters of the person's voice; a facial characteristics matching system to select a predefined articulatory speech synthesis model from among stores of predefined models, the selection based at least in part on one or both of the facial characteristics or the exteriorly visible articulatory speech synthesis model parameters; and an articulatory system to associate at least a portion of the selected predefined articulatory speech synthesis model with the articulatory speech synthesis model of the person's voice.