Abstract
Text, voice and video images are the most common forms of media content for instant communication on the Internet. Studies have shown that facial expressions convey much richer information than text and voice during a face-to-face conversation. The currently available real time means of communication (instant text messages, chat programs and videoconferencing), however, have major drawbacks in terms of exchanging facial expression. The first two means do not involve the image transmission, whilst video conferencing requires a large bandwidth that is not always available, and the transmitted image sequence is neither smooth nor without delay. The objective of the work presented here is to develop a technique that overcomes these limitations, by extracting the facial expression of speakers and to realise real-time communication. In order to get the facial expressions, the main characteristics of the image are emphasized. Interpolation is performed on edge points previously detected to create geometric shapes such as arcs, lines, etc. The regional dominant colours of the pictures are also extracted and the combined results are subsequently converted into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. The application based on the proposed technique aims at being used simultaneously with chat programs and being able to run on any platform.
