Real-time lip contour extraction and tracking using an improved active contour model

Abstract

We present an automatic lip contour extraction and tracking method based on an improved active contour model, which introduces a novel image gradient detection based on the segmented lip, tongue and oral cavity image obtained using a nonlinear transformation of the YCbCr color space and a novel entropy analysis based segmentation. The proposed method provides encouraging results with different mouth shapes (with the appearance of teeth, tongue and oral cavity) under various illuminations. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.