US Patent 9483860 Apparatus and method to extract three-dimensional (3D) facial expression

Provided is a method and apparatus of extracting a 3D facial expression of a user. When a facial image of the user is received, the 3D facial expression extracting method and apparatus may generate 3D expression information by tracking an expression of the user from the facial image using at least one of shape-based tracking and texture-based tracking, may generate a 3D expression model based on the 3D expression information, and reconstruct the 3D expression model to have a natural facial expression by adding muscle control points to the 3D expression model.