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Disney Research app turns colored drawings into 3D characters
A new Disney Research project can make coloring books more exciting for those of us with limited art skills. The team has built an interactive Android and iOS coloring book app using the Unity game engine that can take a colored drawing and turn it into an augmented reality object on screen -- and, yes, as you can see above, it retains the original artwork's texture. In fact, the app can generate parts of the object in the same texture even if you only color a 2D picture. For example, if you fill in the front-facing line drawing of the elephant above, the app will show you a backside that resembles your masterpiece. It's definitely not perfect, but it works.
Disney Research designs 3D-printed soft skin system for toy robots
Baymax is the perfect healthcare companion, because he's soft and doesn't have any sharp edges that could hurt his patients. That's why it's no surprise that when Disney Research wanted to create a toy robot that's safe to play with, the researchers ended up making something that looks like it was plucked right out of his body. A team from the laboratory 3D printed a couple of limb-like robotic parts with soft outer skin that conceals hard plastic components. That soft, rubbery exterior can keep both robot and owner safe, while the air-tight cavity inside can sense pressure. When connected to a robotic system that has pressure feedback control, the cylindrical limbs can handle even delicate objects like a block of tofu.
Disney wants to make robots of your favorite animated characters
Folks working as Disneyland mascots may want to start looking into possible employment opportunities for the future. The company's crazed scientist branch, Disney Research, is developing a biped robot that can walk like an animated character. See, Disney's goal is to bring its CGI characters "to life in the real world" -- sure, mascots can mimic their looks, but this project could lead to robots that move like they do in their movies. In the researcher's paper, they wrote that robots like the one they're developing are in demand "in the entertainment industry because [they] would allow people to physically interact with characters that they have only seen in films or TV."
Disney Research makes dubbed movies more believeable
"This town's like a great big chicken, just waiting to get plucked." That line is one of the more unintentionally funny results of cleaning up 1983's notoriously blue Scarface for cable, and new insight from Disney Research could make awkward redubs like that a relic of the past. By using an automated system that generates alternative dialog while keeping the spoken words in sync with lip movements, Walt's mad science wing thinks it has they key to believeable audio replacement for movies and video games -- perfect for anime and foreign flicks, we'd imagine. For example, Disney says (PDF) that the phrase "clean swatches" is replaceable with "like swats" or "need no pots," thanks to the lines having similar phonemes (the smallest form of speech that differentiates two words, like "bat" and "bad").
Disney Research has a 3D printer that can sew bunnies for you
3D printing has resulted in solid solutions like cartilages, organ replicas and even tortoise shells. But Disney Research now has a printer that can create soft, bendable objects - think 3D printing stuffed toys. The mechanics of the printer are similar to conventional machines that use plastics or metals, except this one works with fabric to create flexible and functional objects. Most additive 3D printers are designed to deposit materials in a specific spot, but fabric requires an alternative technique that imitates sewing or layering.
Disney wants to help developers make games more interactive
Many RPGs have more than one ending, but even then you still have limited ways to control the story or to interact with the characters. Disney Research, however, wants to make real interactive games -- ones where your actions can affect how it progresses and ends -- so it has created a platform that can help developers do so more easily than if they use traditional tools. This platform makes it simpler for creators to spin as many story arcs as they want that can be triggered any time by your actions. It also automatically detects and fixes conflicts in the storyline that you'll inevitably cause as you interact with the characters. Take the bears in the video below the fold, for example.
Disney's Beachbot is an artistic robot turtle that can draw in the sand
The robotic turtle above can't wield katanas, eat pizza or shout cowabunga, but it can still do something awesome: draw big sand sketches on the beach. It's named "Beachbot" and was developed by a team from ETH Zurich and the Zurich division of Disney Research, a network of labs responsible for some really fun projects in the past year. Beachbot draws on the sand by controlling the pressure it puts on a rake attached to its body: that's the easy part anyway. The real challenge was figuring out how to translate pictures into data the robot can understand, so the team developed algorithms that can turn images into trajectories Beachbot can follow. It's not perfect yet, as they still have to manually tweak the results when working on a particularly big artwork, but they're hoping to make it 100 percent automated in the future.
Disney Research's trippy tale of immortality is ready to watch
We didn't expect Disney Research to have one of the more inventive uses of YouTube's crazy frame-rate capabilities, but here we are. The outfit's released its trippy Lucid Dreams of Gabriel short via Google's video wing and, despite it being around four months late, the filmmaking techniques are impressive in their finished form. As a quick refresher, the clip combines novel computational shutters, multiple frame rates within the same shot and high-dynamic range tone mapping to achieve its surreal look. But, in the context of a short film they distract from the story (however hippie-dippy it may be) and make Gabriel seem more like a tech demo than an actual, structured narrative; the tricks do more to call attention to themselves than they do support the action onscreen.
Disney Research crafts a more realistic way to capture the human eye
We're keen on checking in with the folks at Disney Research from time to time to see what crazy projects its been working on. At SIGGRAPH Asia this week, the outfit is presenting recent work in crafting more detailed 3D-rendered eyes. In order to properly capture all the details needed to make things appear realistic for things like character generation, the studio has crafted a method for nabbing those intricacies based not only on appearance, but taking into account how the eye responds to light, too. "Generically modeled eyes may be sufficient for background characters, but it now takes significant effort to manually create realistic eyes for heroes and other leading characters," says Disney Research Zurich's Pascal Bérard. The project is nothing new for Disney's experimental arm, as the folks there have been looking into a method for more detailed ocular representation for quite some time. The method not only cuts down on the work required to manually produce believable results, but the tech could also drastically improve modeling in ophthalmology as well.
Disney Research makes HDR videos work better on regular TVs
Disney Research has found a way to preserve the awesome quality of high-dynamic range or HDR videos when they're shown on consumer-level TVs and displays. See, HDR videos can show shadows and light better than footage taken by conventional equipment can -- in fact, the setting's purpose is to record what we see rather than what the camera sees. Problem is, typical consumer TVs and screens these days aren't capable of displaying them, unless they go through a process called tone mapping.
Disney tech auto-edits your raw footage into watchable video
More and more people are starting to record their daily lives, whether by traditional video cams or first-person live-loggers attached to glasses, headsets, necklaces or even handbags. Since a group of people (say, at a party) are bound to capture videos of the same event from multiple points of view, Disney Research has developed a method to easily splice together footage taken by different cams. Disney's algorithm chooses the most interesting aspect of a single event based on how many cameras are focused on it, then it chops the videos and chooses parts with best quality, lighting or angle for the final cut.
Disney Research's latest tech will accurately 3D print your mullet
Printing in three dimensions allows for a ton of really cool (and life-saving) stuff, but one area it apparently hasn't conquered just yet is realistically reproducing human hair. The masterminds at Disney Research think they have a solution for that conundrum. Instead of trying to capture individual strands of someone's coif, the team is taking a similar approach to that of Michelangelo, and attempting to capture an overall "essence" of a person's hairstyle by fitting it on a bust like a helmet. And while the applications for most of what Walt's science department cooks up are a bit ambiguous, it seems pretty likely this tech'll be found in the myriad souvenir shops lining The Magic Kingdom. Disney says that the ultimate goal is to make more realistic (and possibly nightmare-inducing) figurines that accurately capture the subject's personality. What's more, the outfit has pointed out that it's even capable of accurately capturing facial hair. I might be a tad biased, but here's to hoping that means sideburns too.
Disney has created an algorithm that can turn almost anything into a spinning top
The spinning top is one of the oldest and seemingly simplest toys devised in human history, but that doesn't mean we can't improve it. Disney Research has come up with a new algorithm that allows it to design a stable spinning toy out of almost any shape. Researchers found that shapes that fail to maintain a balanced spin as a solid object could be analyzed before construction to optimize its center of mass for rotational stability -- that is to say, the algorithm tweaked 3D meshes to create hollow, interior spaces that keep it balanced. Using this method, the team was able to 3D print tops in the shapes of teapots, asymmetrical ellipsoids and breakdancing armadillo without fear of them toppling over.
Disney Research uses trippy camerawork to tell a tale of immortality
Disney Research has done an awful lot of neat stuff in the past, but it hasn't really approached Walt's bread and butter before: video. Instead of going with animation, though, the team is using some pretty slick camera tricks to tell a live-action story about unconditional love and a mother attaining immortality through her son. Yeah, we thought the premise was kinda weird too. Dubbed Lucid Dreams of Gabriel, it features techniques like novel computational shutters, high dynamic range tone-mapping and a scene with a few different frame-rates happening all within the same shot. By applying these effects in post, the filmmakers, with help from ETH Zurich, were able to achieve results that otherwise couldn't be produced with conventional camera equipment. Fitting, considering the title references conscious dreams, eh? The full version of the short is due sometime in August, but you can watch the teaser for yourself just after the break.
Disney uses adorable little robots to illustrate big ideas
Disney Research has had some neat ideas in the past (capacitive touch feedback for plants, as an example), but the lab's amped up the cute factor lately. Its newest project? Getting tiny, LED-adorned robots to illustrate things such as The Big Bang. Like a good deal of Mickey's science projects, the experiment, dubbed "Pixelbots," is based around interactivity. The 2-inch swarm bots use magnetic wheels to move about on vertical surfaces. Meanwhile, an algorithm ensures that they won't hit one another and RGB diodes keep the robots looking pretty. Individual units can even be plucked out of formation and the pack will intelligently work to fix the gaps and reform the original shape.
Disney Research makes paper cool again by turning it into a generator (video)
Disney has a knack for making the mundane magical, whether it's transforming a pumpkin into a carriage or a few sheets of paper into a generator. The team from Disney Research accomplished the latter by constructing a simple mechanism with a few low-cost items, like Teflon, conductive adhesives, wires and silver-coated polyester (though paper printed with conductive ink will also work). The negatively charged Teflon sheet functions as an electret, a material capable of holding a quasi-permanent electrical charge; by sandwiching it between either the polyester or conductive paper, you can produce enough voltage to light up a small LED array, create animations on e-paper displays, or trigger animations on connected computers. Using the generator is simple: all you have to do is rub or tap the paper, say, "Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo," and you're all set (the magic word is optional). To see it with your own two eyes, check out the video after the break.
Researchers laugh in the face of flatness with new approaches to haptic displays (video)
If the future of haptic technology is your jam, then the symposium on User Interface Systems and Technology at the University of St. Andrews is the place to be this week. Teams from Disney Research and the University of Bristol will present two different approaches to adding 3D tactility to touch technology, and the results are pretty fascinating. While incorporating haptic feedback into displays isn't unheard of, adapting it to live content has been a challenge. At Disney, researchers developed an algorithm that can translate information culled from depth maps of virtual surfaces into dynamic tactile experiences. Through the magic of electrovibrations, the team was able to simulate changes in texture as a finger slid across a flat surface displaying both static imagery and live video. The group from Bristol opted for a different strategy; instead of vibrations produced by electricity, their UltraHaptics system relies on ultrasound speakers embedded behind a display used in conjunction with a Leap Motion controller. Basically, high-frequency sound waves produce an invisible field that creates a sensation of texture without the user having to touch the screen at all. Interest piqued? Check out videos of both systems in action after the break.
Google Glass update brings mass transit directions
Google Glass owners have long had walking directions; as of an update rolling out today, they're getting mass transit directions as well. Commuters who've paired Glass with an Android phone can now see both the stops they'll need and the time it will take to reach their destination. While mass transit navigation is the only major addition this month, it represents one of the practical updates in recent memory -- we know at least one subway-hopping Google executive who would approve.
Disney project turns the human body into a stealthy speaker (video)
There are already devices that transmit sound to your body without speakers. But what if your body was the speaker? Disney Research has just explored that possibility through its Ishin-Den-Shin project. The experiment amplifies mic input and sends it back as a high voltage, low current signal that turns objects (including humans) into electrostatic audio sources that can't be heard over the air. Touch someone's ear while holding the mic, for example, and you'll deliver a private broadcast. Disney hasn't said if will build Ishin-Den-Shin into any products, but the technology is simpler than what we've seen in electrostatic speakers or headphones; don't be surprised if it pops up elsewhere.
Hands-on with Disney Research's AIREAL haptic feedback technology (video)
If you're hoping to get some more tactile feedback out of augmented reality environments, the folks at Disney Research have devised the AIREAL system that could end up doing just that. The team is showing off the project at SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies space, so we made sure to stop by for a look and feel. As quick refresher, the technology reacts to the user's gestures by churning out a vortex of air to provide tactile feedback in real space -- thanks to an almost entirely 3D printed enclosure and a smattering of actuators and depth sensors. In the demo we saw, hovering our hand just over a display summoned a butterfly. Once it landed, that small bit of air offered up the physical sensation that it was actually touching us. As we moved closer to a virtual open window, wings went a flutter and the whole sensation increased a bit. Sure, what we saw was a fairly simple use scenario, but there are aspirations for this to enhance gaming experiences and other augmented environments (likely within the confines of a Disney park, of course) with the addition of haptic feedback. Looking for a bit more info? Consult the video after the break for just that. %Gallery-194620%
