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NVIDIA Releases Free Public App That Turns Blah Doodles Into Lifelike Landscapes
By Mikelle Leow, 24 Jun 2021
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Image via NVIDIA
If you can only create drawings a mother would love, take comfort that no doodle is too “abstract” for NVIDIA, which has now released an app that converts blobs and shapes into photorealistic landscapes instantly.
Called ‘Canvas’, the AI painting app uses a tool christened ‘GauGAN’—after post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin—to transform brushstrokes into the intended object, like a patch of grass or a rock. The technology was first teased in 2019, and involved the technology being trained on a million photos to fill in areas of landscapes.
You could, for instance, draw the shape of a cloud, and Canvas will convert it into a brand-new image of a real cloud in real-time. Rather than apply colors, Canvas paints with textures of water, grass, and the such to create realistic artwork quickly.
The tool is also great at taking cues. If you draw a pond, Canvas adds trees, rocks, and even reflections in the water. Change wintery artwork by replacing snow with grass, and the entire landscape transforms into a “tropical paradise.”
If the final work is still missing that je ne sais quoi, you could even ask the AI to overhaul it into the style of a famous painter. NVIDIA says the tool doesn’t just grab pieces from existing images, but it generates “brand new images, just like an artist would.”
While Canvas is now ready for users to try it in beta, it is only compatible with devices running on RTX graphics cards for now. For anyone who has one, the app currently offers 15 materials and nine styles.
Image via NVIDIA
Image via NVIDIA
[via IGN and NVIDIA Blog, images via NVIDIA]
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