The beauty machine
November 6, 2008
Samples of photographs manipulated by TAU's "Beauty Machine." Original photographs in top row; manipulated photographis in bottom row. Credit: AFTAU
Our mothers told us that true beauty is more than skin deep — but researchers from Tel Aviv University are now challenging Mom.
They've built a beauty machine that, with the press of a button, turns a picture of your own ordinary face into that of a cover model. While its output is currently limited to digitized images, the software may be able to guide plastic surgeons, aid magazine cover editors, and even become a feature incorporated into all digital cameras.
"Beauty, contrary to what most people think, is not simply in the eye of the beholder," says lead researcher Prof. Daniel Cohen-Or of the Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences at Tel Aviv University. With the aid of computers, attractiveness can be objectified and boiled down to a function of mathematical distances or ratios, he says. This function is the basis for his beauty machine.
In the Eyes of a Majority of Beholders
The research has attracted interest and controversy. Beauty is, after all, a quality that has captivated artists since time immemorial, and its definition has eluded even the world's greatest philosophers. Prof. Cohen-Or sees things more scientifically.
"Beauty can be quantified by mathematical measurements and ratios. It can be defined as average distances between features, which a majority of people agree are the most beautiful," says Prof. Cohen-Or. "I don't claim to know much about beauty. For us, every picture in this research project is just a collection of numbers."
In his study, published recently in the proceedings of Siggraph, an annual computer graphics conference, Prof. Cohen-Or and his graduate student Tommer Leyvand –– together with two colleagues –– surveyed 68 Israeli and German men and women, aged 25 to 40, asking them to rank the beauty of 93 different men's and women's faces on a scale of 1 to 7. These scores were then entered into a database and correlated to 250 different measurements and facial features, such as ratios of the nose, chin and distance from ears to eyes. From this, the scientists created an algorithm that applies desirable elements of attractiveness to a fresh image.
True to the Real You
Unlike heavily processed Photoshop images that can make magazine cover models and celebrities unrecognizable, Tel Aviv University's "beautification engine" is much more subtle. Observers say that the final image it produces retains an unmistakable similarity to the original picture.
Well — in most cases. There is one circumstance where Prof. Cohen-Or's beauty machine doesn't work like a charm: when a celebrity's face is changed.
"We've run the faces of people like Brigitte Bardot and Woody Allen through the machine and most people are very unhappy with the results," he admits. "But in unfamiliar faces, most would agree the output is better." Prof. Cohen-Or now plans on developing the beauty machine further -- to add the third dimension of depth.
Source: American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Sep 15, 2009 |
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Epic Phail.
No, acutally, if anything, after having looked at the images several times, the top middle is definitely the one I find most attractive.
People are also attracted to faces similar to their own. So would an opposite gender version of yourself averaged out by this software make it more attractive?
So what are these guys "fixing"? If it ain't bust DON'T fix it! On the other hand if you want a system for recreating a face for burns victims and so forth, yeah this is great.
I, like others above, didn't know which were "more beautiful" till I read the text. Now I look and think the top row photos all seem perhaps a bit more worried looking. But maybe that is just a reflexion of the fact that the undoctored photos represent what the women look like when they are thinking of the implications of this kind of thing. In other words their personality is showing through whereas down below they have advanced towards clonedom.
That was the first approximation which accounts for most of the "beauty" but there is some more to but only in individuals case as it averages out in larger group. If you have many almost average or in other words pretty faces there is a subtle effect which influences which particular you will pick.
In all probability it is the incentive to look for traits which will compensate your own ones to again produce the average in the child. This part is much harder to study of course.
There ate 2 things about the new images that jumped out at me. The faces are more oval and bilateral symmetry is increased. Notice the hairline on the middle face. See how her right side has been raised (or left side lowered) in the new image. In the right hand image notice how the eyes and eyebrows in the new image are now even with one another (her right eye is not lower than the left) and her lips are now symmetric).
Symmetry implies good genes and oval face is the "classic" facial shape.
Personally I prefer the upper left, either in the middle and the lower right image.
The lower left looks "made up" and I prefer the natural look that the before image has.
As I said before the lack of symmetry in the eyes (and the lack of symmetry in the lips) of the face in the upper right make her looks less than desirable.
Having said all that I must clearly state that physical appearance in a still image is only a small portion of what makes one attractive. How you move, how you carry yourself, vocal tone and what you say, how you say it, knowledge, and interests all components of charisma and are all very important to the big picture.
Just my opinion.
http://www.cs.tau...ication/
It is a serious and cool science, even though we all don't like to be rated according to our beauty...
We can all claim that beauty is not important, but in our daily life we act differently, sad facts of life.