Portrait by Robot




(YouTube link)

How cool would it be to have your portrait done by a robot? The robot was designed by Sylvain Calinon, robot researcher at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA).

When the robot recognizes a face in its field of view, it first grabs a snapshot of this face and extracts the relevant features and contours characterizing it. The robot then grabs a pen and start drawing the user’s portrait, starting from the rough contours and adding details iteratively.

Link to Calinon’s site. -via Dump Trumpet


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Posted on December 29, 2007 at 10:06 am by Miss Cellania
Category: 1 Other Neat Things

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10 comments to "Portrait by Robot"

  • K!P
    December 29th, 2007 at 11:59 am

    someone should steampunk this :D

  • Justin
    December 29th, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    This could have far reaching implications. If I’m not mistaken one of the problems robots have is recognizing features and shapes.

    I’m disappointed though, that we didn’t get to see the drawing in comparison to the actual person. I wonder if it is because it wasn’t very accurate.

  • James Markenson
    December 29th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

    Color me unimpressed. Aside from the robotty proto-chat before and after the portrait, this is nothing more than undergrad-level image processing and simple mapping. Congratulations, you’ve invented the pen plotter.

  • tobot
    December 29th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

    they coulda showed us the picture!

  • just a guy
    December 29th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

    Justin, nothing to fear, it’s not recognising anything. James is right. it’s just essentially printing out a snapshot of the person, modified by a program similar to an Adobe Photoshop filter.

    Essentially, this, as well as many other computer behavior simulations, really just proves how clever the human programmer can be at tricking other humans. It’s amazing how ready humans are to personify nonliving things if they resemble living things. Most of us had our first experience in this as toddlers with various stuffed animals. :)

  • Tempscire
    December 29th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

    Sooo…they made a less-efficient printer? Still nifty though.

  • TimW
    December 29th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    I skimmed the caption and saw the phrase Sylvain Calinon, robot researcher. What my mind saw was Susan Calvin, Robot Researcher.. if you don’t understand this, go back and read the Asimov robot stories..

  • otterly
    December 30th, 2007 at 12:44 am

    That was very cute! He sounded very intellectual and had his own drawing style.

  • ben
    December 30th, 2007 at 10:53 pm

    They’re takin’ our JOBS!

  • Jezebel
    January 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    Haha I had this done at Chuck E. Cheese’s once. . .

    TimW, not everything is a conspiracy.

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