Patents by Inventor Byung Kuk Choi

Byung Kuk Choi has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20220076409
    Abstract: An animation system wherein a machine learning model is adopted to learn a transformation relationship between facial muscle movements and skin surface movements. For example, for the skin surface representing “smile,” the transformation model derives movement vectors relating to what facial muscles are activated, what are the muscle strains, what is the joint movement, and/or the like. Such derived movement vectors may be used to simulate the skin surface “smile.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 28, 2020
    Publication date: March 10, 2022
    Inventor: Byung Kuk Choi
  • Publication number: 20220005248
    Abstract: An animation system wherein scanned facial expressions are processed to form muscle models that can be used to generate expressions based on specification of a strain vector and a control vector of the muscle model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 28, 2020
    Publication date: January 6, 2022
    Inventors: Byung Kuk Choi, Gergely Klár
  • Publication number: 20220005249
    Abstract: An animation system wherein scanned facial expressions are processed to form muscle models that can be used to generate expressions based on specification of a strain vector and a control vector of the muscle model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 20, 2021
    Publication date: January 6, 2022
    Inventors: Byung Kuk Choi, Gergely Klár
  • Patent number: 11158104
    Abstract: An animation system wherein a machine learning model is adopted to generate animated facial actions based on parameters obtained from a live actor. Specifically, the anatomical structure such as a facial muscle topology and a skull surface that are specific to the live actor may be used. A muscle structure of simplified “pseudo” muscles that approximate the actual muscle topology but with reduced degree of freedom is determined to improve computational efficiency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: Weta Digital Limited
    Inventor: Byung Kuk Choi
  • Patent number: 11158103
    Abstract: An animation system wherein a machine learning model is adopted to learn a transformation relationship between facial muscle movements and skin surface movements. For example, for the skin surface representing “smile,” the transformation model derives movement vectors relating to what facial muscles are activated, what are the muscle strains, what is the joint movement, and/or the like. Such derived movement vectors may be used to simulate the skin surface “smile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: Weta Digital Limited
    Inventor: Byung Kuk Choi
  • Patent number: 11129551
    Abstract: An apparatus for motion transformation according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a basic data input unit through which basic motion data is inputted, a pre-processing unit which acquires a parameter through pre-processing of the inputted basic motion data, a motion transformation unit which performs biomechanical observations-based gait motion transformation processing based on the pre-processed parameter and age input information, and an output unit which outputs the transformation processed motion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 28, 2021
    Assignee: KOREA ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
    Inventors: Junyong Noh, Sunjin Jung, Seokpyo Hong, Kyungmin Cho, Haegwang Eom, Byung Kuk Choi
  • Patent number: 11055892
    Abstract: An animation system wherein a machine learning model is adopted to generate animated facial actions based on parameters obtained from a live actor. Specifically, the anatomical structure such as a facial muscle topology and a skull surface that are specific to the live actor may be used. A skull surface that is specific to a live actor based on facial scans of the live actor and generic tissue depth data. For example, the facial scans of the live actor may provide a skin surface topology of the live actor, based on which the skull surface underneath the skin surface can be derived by “offsetting” the skin surface with corresponding soft tissue depth at different sampled points on the skin surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: July 6, 2021
    Assignee: Weta Digital Limited
    Inventor: Byung Kuk Choi
  • Patent number: 10586371
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a motion retargeting method and apparatus for character animation, and the method may include generating an intermediate object including at least one of a skeleton and a mesh based on a source motion and a target character, extracting keyframes of the intermediate object, constituting target rig parameters based on the extracted keyframes, and performing spacetime optimization on the target rig parameters to minimize a pose error between the intermediate object and the target character.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2020
    Assignee: KOREA ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
    Inventors: Jun Yong Noh, Jae Won Song, Roger Blanco Ribera, Kyung Min Cho, Mi Yu, Byung Kuk Choi
  • Publication number: 20190066351
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a motion retargeting method and apparatus for character animation, and the method may include generating an intermediate object including at least one of a skeleton and a mesh based on a source motion and a target character, extracting keyframes of the intermediate object, constituting target rig parameters based on the extracted keyframes, and performing spacetime optimization on the target rig parameters to minimize a pose error between the intermediate object and the target character.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2018
    Publication date: February 28, 2019
    Inventors: Jun Yong Noh, Jae Won Song, Roger Blanco Ribera, Kyung Min Cho, Mi Yu, Byung Kuk Choi
  • Publication number: 20180368734
    Abstract: An apparatus for motion transformation according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a basic data input unit through which basic motion data is inputted, a pre-processing unit which acquires a parameter through pre-processing of the inputted basic motion data, a motion transformation unit which performs biomechanical observations-based gait motion transformation processing based on the pre-processed parameter and age input information, and an output unit which outputs the transformation processed motion.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 22, 2018
    Publication date: December 27, 2018
    Inventors: Junyong Noh, Sunjin Jung, Seokpyo Hong, Kyungmin Cho, Haegwang Eom, Byung Kuk Choi
  • Publication number: 20170316595
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method for providing a rigging tool. The method for providing a rigging tool includes receiving an input character, generating a basic rigging at the input character by using a skeleton extraction technique and a skinning weight technique, and providing a skeleton correction function and a skinning weight correction function on the basis of the generated basic rigging.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 6, 2016
    Publication date: November 2, 2017
    Inventors: Jun Yong Noh, Seung Bae Bang, Byung Kuk Choi, Roger Blanco Ribera, Mee Kyoung Kim, Sung Hee Lee