Reconstruction of facial shape from freehand multi-viewpoint snapshots

We propose a method that can reconstruct both facial poses and the facial shape from freehand multi-viewpoint snapshots. This method is based on Active Shape Models (ASM), which is a technique that uses a facial shape database. Most ASM methods require image in which the facial pose is known, but our method does not require this information. First, we chose an initial shape by selecting the model from the database which is most similar to the input images. Then, we improve the model by morphing it to better fit the input images. Next, we estimate the pose of the face using the morphed model. Finally we repeat the process, improving both the facial shape and the facial pose until the error between the input and the computed result is minimized. Through experimentation, we show that our method reconstructs the facial shape within 3.5mm of the ground truth.