Our Selfies May Soon Become 3D Avatars of Ourselves

This is pretty impressive technology for creating a 3D avatar modeled after someone based on their smartphone selfies:

Usually, photorealistic 3D avatars are created in a motion capture studio, which is hardly the best way to make that tech mass market. But most everyone has a smartphone, and these developers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (a Swiss university) have figured out how to make the smartphone act like a mocap studio:

Using a smartphone to replace studio conditions – which include proper lighting and numerous cameras – was a real challenge. “We begin by assuming that people will take pictures of themselves in conditions that are impossible to control,” said Alexandru. The main difficulties: changes in the light, blurry shots without a tripod, and limited picture quality depending on the smartphone's camera.

No word on when this will be available to consumers, and I'd love to see how well this actually works outside the school's demos. But it's definitely tech worth following.

Hat tip: Slate.com.

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Comments

[lagomorph7]

OMG. Can you say uncanny valley?

[Joey1058]

Now to get something like this into HiFidelity or Sensar!