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An App For the Perfect Selfie


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Entertainer Mario Lopez in his selfies with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

A new smartphone app created at the University of Waterloo is designed to help people learn how to take better selfies.

Credit: Mario Lopez

Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada say they have developed a smartphone application designed to help people learn how to take better selfies.

The researchers note the app is based on an algorithm that directs the user where to position the camera so they can take the best picture possible.

The team developed the algorithm using three-dimensional digital scans of typical-looking people. They then took hundreds of "virtual selfies" by writing code to control a virtual smartphone camera and computer-generated lighting, which enabled them to study different composition principles, including lighting direction, face position, and face size.

The researchers used an online crowdsourcing service to recruit thousands of people to vote on which of the virtual self-photos were best.

The app users' online ratings indicated a 26% improvement in selfies.

The researchers presented the work in June at the 2017 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2017) in Edinburgh, Scotland.

From University of Waterloo
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Abstracts Copyright © 2017 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA


 

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