VIDAS: Video Assisted Audio Coding and Representation

Goals The basic objective of VIDAS was that of approaching the problem of facial animation from a combined audio-video point of view, for both the analysis and the synthesis. The main goal was the consolidation of advanced technologies for synthetic/natural representation and coding of facial sequences. In particular, a generic face-to-face communication has been modelled as a multimodal information source characterised in audio by a human speaker’s voice and in video by the same speaker’s face. In the vast majority of cases, in fact, an interpersonal communication consists exactly of these two strongly correlated items: a speaking face together with its synchronous speech. From the technical point, a major goal addressed by the project was that of implementing a software prototype for synthetic facial animation, compliant with the new MPEG-4 standard, capable of reproducing the speaker’s face through a 3D deformable model, suited to be calibrated through standard FDP (Face Definition Parameters) and to be animated through standard FAP (Face Animation Parameters). The mandate of VIDAS included a deep and responsible commitment in the MPEG-4 standardisation process with special reference to SNHC (Synthetic/Natural Hybrid Coding) and FBA (Face and Body Animation). Part of VIDAS responsibilities have also concerned the dissemination of this kind of information to the scientific European community through a variety of initiatives like the periodic ACTS Concertation Meetings, ECMAST and IST conferences and “ad hoc” workshops like those organised by VIDAS itself in Rhodes (IWSNHC3DI’97) and in Santorini (IWSNHC3DI’99). Final goals of VIDAS have been the evaluation of the subjective impact produced by the synthetic facial animation on normal hearing and on hearing-impaired subjects, and the feasibility study for porting this MPEG-4 technology on real-time platforms.