Customer-dependent storytelling tool with authoring and viewing functions

Abstract

The animation is the main content of the digital storytelling. It usually has the fixed number of characters. We want a customer to appear in the animation as a main character. For this purpose, we have developed the tool that helps to automatically implants facial shapes of a customer into the existing animation images. Our tool first takes an image of a customer and extracts out a face region and some valuable features that depicts the shape and facial expression of the customer. Our tool has the module that changes the existing character's face with that of the customer. This module employs the facial expression recognition and warping functions so that the customer's face fits into the confined region with the similar facial expression. Our tool also has the module that shows the sequence of images in the form of animation. This module employs the data compression function and produces the AVI format files and throws them into the graphic board. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.