Nijigenka (????) is Japanese for “2D-ification.” Artists take photos of people and turn them into anime characters. But now researchers are starting to have A.I. do the image-to-image translation.

At a recent workshop about deep learning in Tokyo, a researcher from Fudan University gave a presentation on creating anime characters with artificial intelligence. Researchers are using deep learning to produce anime versions of real photos. (For more image-to-image translations, watch this clip.)

This poses challenges for anime, because there are certain features that are specific to characters.

Some results haven’t been that created, which is why the researchers had to tune their method.

For greater success.

Expect this tech to get better and better.


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