Facial animation is, despite all advances on the technical front, still a challenge and a rewarding research subject. This might be the one-line summary of my PhD thesis, the outcome of my time at the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik in Saarbrücken. In a few more words, I developed an anatomy-based modeling approach in conjunction with a physically-based animation system.

The title of my thesis is “A Head Model with Anatomical Structure for Facial Modeling and Animation”. You can find the full text in the publications section. Please also visit the MPII’s facial animation and modeling pages to learn more about this project.

Media recognition

Following is a loose collection of references to appearances of our (award-winning!) facial animation project in the media.

Beware, the following links lead to german language texts:

Aufmacher in der Saarbrücker Zeitung vom 25.4.2002 – kostenpflichtiger Archivzugriff
SaarLB-Wissenschaftspreis für System zur Modellierung und Animation von Gesichtern
Software gibt Mordopfern ihr Gesicht zurück (Scienceticker.info)
Gesichter aus dem Computer (3Sat, zum Beitrag auf nano)
Wiederbelebung im Cyberspace (Focus Magazin, s.a. Heft 33/2003, S. 86)
Neue Software gibt Toten “lebendige Gesichter” (ORF ON Science)
Das lachende Phantombild (Netzeitung.de Wissenschaft)

These articles are in english:

Skulls gain virtual faces (TRNmag.com)
Animation lets murder victims have final say (NewScientist.com)