Rosenberg: 4D FACS Scans

The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is a comprehensive, anatomically based system for describing all visually discernible facial movement. It breaks down facial expressions into individual components of muscle movement, called Action Units (AUs).

This confidential database of Action Units was performed by Dr. Erika Rosenberg, the world renowned expert in FACS and protégé of Paul Ekman its senior author. Dr. Rosenberg has taught FACS to psychologists, behavioural scientists, and animators for the past 30 years. During this period, she has gained the ability to pose each Action Unit and their common combinations to a very high fidelity.

The original photogrammetry was captured on a DI4D Pro system from Dimensional Imaging. A 9 x 2K CCD camera array synchronised at 60 fps. The raw point cloud meshes were imported into a game engine and played sequentially as reference for animators and modellers.

In 2018, Dimensional Imaging tracked the meshes with a temporarily consistent mesh enabling their use as blendshape targets for internal use inside Humain.

Date of capture: 15th October 2013
Date of completion for internal use: 30th October 2018

This database contains 40 Action Units and 100 of their common combinations.