Have you ever wondered how a photo of your face would look in 3D? Now you can find out, thanks to a group of artificial intelligence experts who developed 3DME, a web portal that converts a photo of your face into a 3D image.
Turning a 2D Photo into a 3D Face
A group of artificial intelligence experts from the University of Nottingham and Kingston University, both in the UK, developed a new method that uses machine learning to convert two-dimensional images of faces into 3D. They trained a convolutional neural network for this task by feeding it tons of data on people's faces. From there, the AI learned how to predict what a new face looks like from an unseen image, including parts it cannot see in the photo. In this way, you can convert a photo of your face into a 3D image by visiting the 3DME portal.
How to Use 3DME
Similar to 3D Face, you don't need to install additional software or go through tutorials. Simply find and upload a photo with the face facing the camera and be amazed by the result. It's worth noting that the photo must be in JPG format (any other format won't be recognized by the tool during the conversion process). Even upon entering the 3DME portal, you can try several example faces in case you don't want to upload a photo. The interesting thing is that besides photos, it also works with old black-and-white images and paintings.
The Team Behind 3DME
The 3DME team, which consists of Aaron S. Jackson, Adrian Bulat, Vasileios Argyriou, and Georgios Tzimiropoulos, will present their work next month at the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision in Venice, Italy. There's no doubt that an AI that can convert a photo of your face into a 3D image is the tip of the iceberg here. The implications go far beyond entertaining tech journalists for hours at a time with such a portal. In reality, computer vision is one of the most useful purposes for deep learning, and we can't wait to see what Jackson and his colleagues will do next.
Official site: 3DME
