Scientists create Robot Artist (with the help of artists of course)

The Center for Art and Media ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany has developed a robot installation that can render life like sketches of subjects with remarkable accuracy and character. The technology is now part of an array of robots used to design high-tech reflectors and other safety devices at the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB in Karlsruhe.  With this scientists have created an interface between art, science and technology.

Artists are often colorful personalities. This one, though, comes across as cool, precise and metallic – and is anything but extravagant. No wonder – after all, it's an industrial robot, one that will convert the Fraunhofer stand at CeBIT into an art studio. Its artistic genius only emerges if someone takes a seat on the model's stool positioned in front of the robot: first, its camera records an image of its model; then it whips out its pencil and traces a portrait of the individual on its easel. After around ten minutes have passed, it grabs the work and proudly presents it to its public. This robot installation was developed  in the robotlab group, at the Center for Art and Media ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Essentially, the robot begins with a picture of a subject, then it submits the photo to edge detectors who trace contrasts and turn them into coordinates which the arm actuates. The result is a realistic rendering of the subject. The machine’s ability to analyze light reflections is what makes it so proficient at its regular work, producing refraction-based safety devices.

The device is on display in Hanover, Germany at the Center for Office Automation, Information Technology and Telecommunication this year. Interested parties will be welcome to sit for their own portraits and witness the magnitude of the robot’s skill for themselves.

The Center for Art and Media

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