A method for mapping a digitized image of a face to a wireframe is provided. The wireframe is composed of a plurality of nodes connected by lines. The method includes the steps of detecting a plurality of facial features from the plurality of pixels of a reference facial image. Corresponding facial landmark nodes in the wireframe topology are determined. A transform between the facial features and the landmark nodes is computed to map the wireframe topology to reference facial image. The reference facial image and a target facial image are cropped using a bounding box. The cropped reference facial image is registered with the cropped target facial image to determine a displacement field. The displacement field is applied to the mapped wireframe topology for the reference facial image to map the target facial image to the wireframe topology.