Sketch2Photo

Ever wished that combining photos into a single seamless image didn’t require hours hunched over Photoshop and abundant skill? Students at Tsinghua University in Beijing may have found just the solution with Sketch2Photo, a new method that composes a realistic picture from a simple freehand sketch annotated with text labels—meaning that one could create a convincing family portrait from solo photos of Mom, Dad, and Junior along with a simple drawing of where each person should be positioned in the montage. We were sure that magic was involved, but it’s actually oodles of algorithms. Luckily, knowledge of Poisson blending operations is not needed to appreciate the power of Sketch2Photo, which should be available for online demo shortly. In the meantime, check out the video of the system at work.