3D modeling of humans with skeletons from uncalibrated wide baseline views

Abstract

In order to achieve precise, accurate and reliable tracking of human movement, a 3D human model that is very similar to the subject is essential. In this paper, we present a new system to (1) precisely construct the surface shape of the whole human body, and (2) estimate the underlying skeleton. In this work we make use of a set of images of the subject in collaboration with a generic anthropometrical 3D model made up of regular surfaces and skeletons to adapt to the specific subject. We developed a three-stage technique that uses the human shape feature points and limb outlines that work together with the generic 3D model to yield our final customized 3D model. The first stage is an iterative camera pose calibration and 3D characteristic point reconstruction-deformation algorithm that gives us an initial customized 3D model. The second stage refines the initial customized 3D model by deformation via the silhouette limbs information, thus obtaining the surface skin model. In the final stage, we make use of the results of skin deformation to estimate the underlying skeleton. From our final results, we demonstrate that our system is able to construct quality human model, where the skeleton is constructed and positioned automatically. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.