Communications of the ACM
You Too Can Have a Dream Body
If you dislike the way you look on video, a new kind of image-manipulation software could make you feel better about yourself.
Developed by Christian Theobalt of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany, and colleagues, it allows professional and amateur movie-makers to dramatically alter how muscular, leggy or heavy people appear on film. Until now this could only be done by laborious frame-by-frame retouching.
Theobalt's team began by generating 3D scans of 120 men and women of varying size and shape in a range of poses. By merging the scans, they were able to create a single model that could be morphed from any body shape or pose to any other.
Turning to the video sequence containing the actor whose shape they wish to manipulate, the team uses a mix of off-the-shelf and bespoke software to track the actor's silhouette through the scene. The software then maps the silhouette onto the morphable model, and tweaks it to generate the required height, weight, leg length or muscularity.
From New Scientist
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