Automatic Generation of 3D Computer Caricatures based on Artistic Deformation Styles

Caricatures are a form of humorous visual art, usually created by skilled artists for the intention of amusement and entertainment. In this paper, we present a novel approach for automatic generation of a computer caricature from a facial photograph, which captures artistic deformation styles from hand-drawn caricatures. In order to achieve this, we propose a pseudo stress-strain model to encode the parameters of an artistic deformation style using ‘virtual’ physical and material properties. We have also developed a software system for performing the caricaturistic deformation in 3D which eliminates the undesirable artefacts in 2D caricaturisation. We employed a Multi-level Free-Form Deformation (MFFD) technique to optimize a 3D head model reconstructed from an input facial photograph, and also for controlling the caricaturistic deformation. Our results demonstrated the effectiveness and usability of the proposed approach and the developed techniques, which allow everyday users to apply the captured and stored deformation styles to a variety of facial photographs.