Aikon 2 robot sketches the human face, uses its talent to meet girls
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Feb 15th 2010 3:56PM
posted Feb 15th 2010 3:56PM
Yes, that's exactly what it looks like -- a robot that can look at a human face and make a pretty reasonable sketch of it. Featured at London's Kinetica art fair last week, the Aikon 2 project boasts an "inexpensive" robot arm and software developed by a research team at Goldsmiths University of London. As you might have guessed, building a device with rudimentary artistic ability is no mean feat -- leading the developers to try and understand and simulate the processes by which artists sketch the human face, including: visual perception of the subject and the sketch, drawing gestures, cognitive activity, reasoning, and the influence of training. The project's website emphasizes that "due to knowledge and technological limitations the implementation of each process will remain coarse and approximate." In other words, the robot "is expected to draw in its own style." Which is, quite frankly, better than we can do. We look forward to seeing these things in the cafes of the future, where robots not only fetch us drinks but chat up girls with offers to draw their portraits. Video after the break.
Aren't there machines in malls that do something similar, sans robotic arm?
@l3admonky
The ones in the malls simply take a photograph and apply graphical filters. This one does not, it analyzes what it sees (remembering its past) considering major shapes and such.
Here is a picture to help:
http://7575746537166336891-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/aikonproject/Home/diagram-02-sml.png?attachauth=ANoY7cqKQrgkZHOqcZ8HIL0JccpYkbpr6lZqB46WgsuCZ40pO77wRK49hc5jS5qwFO1M4ulMCySG8QNWnqm9fEgVm4EzrPBEC1GM27dLfNXTRGfZhBLVJgqABCxjn9VdAmURavxDIVHabF-Yl4lFrW30q-2c419I4lKwowTkYg4P8p_Upb1RiIi3PnE35NLz_BN6hOgZdhBHxZbZjySXO5W4QGJgImIb0Q%3D%3D&attredirects;=0
This is fairly cool though. I like the fact that any writing utencial can be attached, soon enough it will be making oil paintings! Fresco's next maybe?
Well, the image is a graph on the Aikon page, mid way down under the heading "Aikon-ii. (2008-2012)"
As fast as this is, it will still take all night to shade the upper lip...
now a robot that is taking artists jobs.
They took our jobs!
@cwalters74 They took yer job!
@cwalters74
De tuk er jerrrrrrrbs!
tuuukrrr jbbb!
Taaaaaaaaaaaaaake on meeeeeee
LOL :)
"As you might have guessed, building a device with rudimentary artistic ability is no mean feat"
They had machines doing this at EPCOT back in 1980... hardly new. The algorithm is simply a contrast/edge detector, and the lines are sent to the arm. A neat parlor trick, but it has no artistic ability, and creating it is only a mean feat for someone who has never taken a basic imaging course.
@MacGyverS2000 Nice try, but this isn't a simple edge detector.
Who else saw the drawing and thought of Sonny from iRobot?
This remind me of when the robot draws his dream in the movie "I, Robot"
I have one of those at home, but we just call it a printer
*whew* My moniker is safe...
I think they need to train it to deal with a Bic pen that isn't writing. A robot that gets frustrated that its pen doesn't write would be something I'd watch.
fail,
didn't show side by side D: might as well have been programmed to do those exact movements ;_;
Not quite as good as the physionotrace of 1786 nor Willème's photosculpture of 1861. A bit quicker though.
aikon and young cheese-ey!
darkness > talent
Now they know what we look like!
Was that an intentional Napoleon Dynamite reference?
Napoleon Dynamite: Well, nobody's going to go out with *me*!
Pedro: Have you asked anybody yet?
Napoleon Dynamite: No, but who would? I don't even have any good skills.
Pedro: What do you mean?
Napoleon Dynamite: You know, like nunchuk skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.
Pedro: Aren't you pretty good at drawing, like animals and warriors and stuff?
Napoleon Dynamite: Yes... probably the best that I know of.
Pedro: Just draw a picture of the girl you want to take out... and give it to her for like a gift or something.
Napoleon Dynamite: That's a pretty good idea.