Stroke of Genius: GauGAN Turns Doodles into Stunning, Photorealistic Landscapes

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Link: Stroke of Genius: GauGAN Turns Doodles into Stunning, Photorealistic Landscapes [NVIDIA Blog]

 

 

A novice painter might set brush to canvas aiming to create a stunning sunset landscape — craggy, snow-covered peaks reflected in a glassy lake — only to end up with something that looks more like a multi-colored inkblot.

 

But a deep learning model developed by NVIDIA Research can do just the opposite: it turns rough doodles into photorealistic masterpieces with breathtaking ease. The tool leverages generative adversarial networks, or GANs, to convert segmentation maps into lifelike images.

 

The interactive app using the model, in a lighthearted nod to the post-Impressionist painter, has been christened GauGAN.

 

GauGAN could offer a powerful tool for creating virtual worlds to everyone from architects and urban planners to landscape designers and game developers. With an AI that understands how the real world looks, these professionals could better prototype ideas and make rapid changes to a synthetic scene...