The Dreambit search engine in action (Photo : YouTube / Dreambit)
Photoshop can be a useful tool for trying out new hairstyles but the new Dreambit search engine can do it faster as it automatically plots a user's face quickly within just seconds.
Sure, any Internet user worth his or her salt can Photoshop someone's face on another photo but it can take several minutes. The Dreambit search engine can do so in several seconds and for many photos at once with quite accurate results.
Users can just upload a photo of their face and the engine will automatically put it in other photos seamlessly based on what the user enters as the search term. Computer vision researcher Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman from the University of Washington was the person behind the Dreambit search engine, TechCrunch has learned.
If a user wants to see if he or she can look good in dreadlocks, the Dreambit engine will process the photo and search for several images of dreadlocks for it to put the user's face on. Users can also try out how they would look like based on a time period's fashion trend.
Kemelmacher-Shlizerman also wants to use the Dreambit photo engine for searching for missing persons as it can also show how the person would look like if they aged or if their hair has been changed, UW Today reported. The developer has also made a system for showing how a person would look like in several years which is similar to the many apps that claim they can make a user look "old."
Another possible use of the Dreambit search engine is to see whether an actor or actress can fit in a role without having to call the person and change their looks. Studio executives can just use the engine's process to change how a Hollywood star looks in different hairstyles.
Kemelmacher-Shlizerman said: "The key idea is to find a doppelgänger set - people who look similar enough to you that you can copy certain elements of their appearance."
Dreambit is not yet available to the public but users can sign up for the beta version to see the outstanding results of the developer's work. The project will be presented at SIGGRAPH next week and it can be improved further to be used by law enforcement authorities.
