More accessible viewing University Search News ... Contact PR Press Release 25.8.04 New software turns family albums and home movies into Picasso masterpieces [may be slow for dial-up users] The family portrait is set to become a great work of art thanks to new computer software that can turn photographs into cubist artworks in the style of Picasso. The Picasso-effect software is part of a unique suite of imaging technologies developed by computer scientists at the University of Bath that turns photo albums, videos and movies into drawings, paintings, and cartoons. The software could also revolutionise the way that animations are made. In order to create the software, the researchers had to teach the computer how to pick out the elements of photographs that, until now, only humans have been able to recognise as important. According to Dr Hall, the key to the new software is helping the computer recognise the important aspects of the photograph or film footage being used: "When humans draw or paint they distil all the vast detail a camera sees into a few lines or daubs of paint. We plug digital cameras into our computers and write software that 'looks' for the same kind of important things as humans do." | |
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