A research project converts crude sketches into photorealistic scenes using Internet photographs.
By Will Knight
This video shows software that can turn crude sketches into remarkably slick Photoshoped images by stitching together photographs grabbed from the Internet.
The software, called PhotoSketch, was created by students at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore in China. It will be demoed in December at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009.
To use PhotoSketch, a user simply sketches a scene, using blobs to represent different components, with descriptive tags added to each blob. The software uses the tags to search for potentially
suitable images on the Internet. It then tries to match the components within those
images with those in the sketch and with a background before presenting the
user with a selection of snaps that go together nicely. The video also includes a nice explanation of the
technology. The resulting images are often very realistically
Photoshopped.
When I think the world is going to he** in a handbasket, I check out incredible things coming down the pike as reported by MIT's Tech Review and have faith in the world again. ... no offense, but, I sure wish we saw as numerous innovations by Americans.
The first writer was exactly correct about using just any image from the Internet. There are copyright problems... China does not worry about copyrights and has been known to republish well known handbooks, etc. without recognizing the owner of the copyright.
However, if I could get the software and have it search my collection of pictures, this would be a workable situation.
I agree that this technology is impressive, and even inspirational. It marks another step, however, towards a world where we can no longer trust images as visual evidence. This has dangerous implications for digital and printed news-media.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
One foreseeable problem could be legal: the rights to the images.
dtutelman
10/07/2009
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ronaldoport
10/07/2009
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However, if I could get the software and have it search my collection of pictures, this would be a workable situation.
Charlie Richmond
crichmcc
10/07/2009
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whitfield.fo...
10/07/2009
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cockroach
10/07/2009
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