We all have at least once fancied our digital selves in this age of hydra-headed technology. Now very soon this is going to be a reality and all you have to do to create your digital image is take selfies.
A process developed by Alexandru Ichim and his colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) lets the users create their digital avatar just by using their smartphones to take selfies from different angles to analyse minor skin details, and taking videos of their everyday expressions to construct details like smile, yawn, laughing and winking.
You can use this digital image to play video games and in virtual reality meetings, without spending a penny. The developers are still trying to develop an app version of this feature, which is available only on a computer that is connected to a smartphone right now.
The feature has a few technical limitations right now- for example, the system yet does not create models of eyes, and inside of the mouth and few other body parts. The developers are still working on it and this can make the digital double look more realistic.
“We wanted the process to be fast and easy: all you have to do is take a video of yourself and then snap a few more shots to get facial expressions, and our algorithm does the rest,” said researcher Alexandru Ichim from the Computer Graphics and Geometry Laboratory at EPFL.
The feature may turn out to be a bliss for all the gamers, although It’ll be interesting to see how the public responds to the idea of creating their body doubles online.
Do you want to meet your digital body double? Tell us in comments below.
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