Preprocessing of 3D scanned images for facial animation on the basis of realistic acquisition

Facial animation done by performance capture techniques is a subject of growing importance while the quality of graphics and animation in entertainment industry is constantly improving. Most realistic results in facial animation can be obtained using realistic acquisition of human face by various three-dimensional scanning devices. Such registration, however, is prone to errors related to specifity of scanned area, therefore some preprocessing is needed so the obtained model could be used. The aim of this paper is to present typical, face-specific issues as well as solutions related to preprocessing of mesh constructed by scanning techniques. Mesh traversing is applied to reduce number of noisy data related to light dispersion and reflection. Non-manifold edges and vertices are corrected on basis of specifity of studied area, strips of noisy triangles typical for hair are removed and holes typical for chin-neck part of model are filled. Resulting mesh represents single, continuous surface without non-manifold edges or vertices and with hair-related noise removed. Although model after preprocessing is ready for animation, future study to minimize data not related to facial expressions might be needed.