Can we create a digital avatar that looks, acts and talks just like our sweet grandma? This question has inspired Supasorn Suwajanakorn, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Washington, to spend years developing new tools to make it a reality. He has developed a set of algorithms that can build a moving 3D face model of anyone from just photos, which was awarded the Innovation of the Year in 2016. He then introduced the first system that can replicate a person's speech and produce a realistic CG-animation by only analyzing their existing video footage -- all without ever bringing in the person to a Hollywood capture studio.
Suwajanakorn is working in the field of machine learning and computer vision. His goal is to bring vision algorithms out of the lab and make them work in the wild.
For the Session 3 of the conference, TED Head of Curation Helen Walters says, “We’re throwing off all pretense of cool.” Seven speakers are queued up to discuss the latest advances in their fields of technology. And while the gadgets do all different things, they share one crucial function: the power to make jaws drop. […]
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