Search Engine Swaps User Faces into Results
February 22, 2017
Oh, the wonders of modern technology. Now, TechCrunch informs us, “This Amazing Search Engine Automatically Face Swaps You Into Your Image Results.” Searching may never be the same. Writer Devin Coldewey introduces us to Dreambit, a search engine that automatically swaps your face into select image-search results. The write-up includes some screenshots, and the results can be a bit surreal.
The system analyzes the picture of your face and determines how to intelligently crop it to leave nothing but your face. It then searches for images matching your search term — curly hair, for example — and looks for ‘doppelganger sets, images where the subject’s face is in a similar position to your own.
A similar process is done on the target images to mask out the faces and intelligently put your own in their place — and voila! You with curly hair, again and again and again. […]
It’s not limited to hairstyles, either: put yourself in a movie, a location, a painting — as long as there’s a similarly positioned face to swap yours with, the software can do it. A few facial features, like beards, make the edges of the face difficult to find, however, so you may not be able to swap with Rasputin or Gandalf.
Behind the nifty technology is the University of Washington’s Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, a researcher in computer vision, facial recognition, and augmented reality. Her work could have more sober applications, too, like automated age-progressions to help with missing-person cases. Though the software is still in beta, it is easy to foresee a wide array of uses ahead. Now, more than ever, don’t believe everything you see.
Cynthia Murrell, February 22, 2017
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