Patent attributes
Disclosed is an inventive method for providing visual chat. A character image is read into memory representing a character a user wishes to be for the duration of the visual chat. Continuous frames of video images are then received, typically using video camera, which include image data of a person. The head image of the person is then tracked by the system, and portions of the head image are extracted from the video images. These extracted portions are preferably features of the person in the video image. Finally, the extracted portions of the head image are blended into corresponding areas of the character image, such that the features of the blended character image match the features of the person, and change as the features of the person change.
