Student Feature: 'Thesis: A Head Model with Anatomical Structure for Facial Modeling and Animation'

In today's student feature, part of Gamasutra's education coverage, we present an academic thesis from Kolja Kaehler, who pursued his PhD at the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik in Saarbrücken, Germany from 1999 to 2003, and now works at Avid. Kaehler's overview for his work, 'A Head Model with Anatomical Structure for Facial Modeling and Animation', explains: "This situation motivates my dissertation: I propose that an anatomy-based virtual head model can be animated in real time using numerical simulation techniques, driven by an advanced facial muscle model. The simulation is efficient enough to achieve real-time frame rates on current PC hardware... The general deformation method allows for several applications including the adaptation of a reference head model to individual scan data to produce animated head models of real people. The methods and techniques described are demonstrated on human head models, but they are also applicable to other virtual creatures, with few modifications in the construction process." You can now read the full synopsis and download the full 168 page PDF for this student thesis (no registration required.)