RoboCoDraw: Robotic Avatar Drawing with GAN-based Style Transfer and Time-efficient Path Optimization

Robotic drawing has become increasingly popular as an entertainment and interactive tool. In this paper we present RoboCoDraw, a real-time collaborative robot-based drawing system that draws stylized human face sketches interactively in front of human users, by using the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based style transfer and a Random-Key Genetic Algorithm (RKGA)-based path optimization. The proposed RoboCoDraw system takes a real human face image as input, converts it to a stylized avatar, then draws it with a robotic arm. A core component in this system is the Avatar-GAN proposed by us, which generates a cartoon avatar face image from a real human face. AvatarGAN is trained with unpaired face and avatar images only and can generate avatar images of much better likeness with human face images in comparison with the vanilla CycleGAN. After the avatar image is generated, it is fed to a line extraction algorithm and converted to sketches. An RKGA-based path optimization algorithm is applied to find a time-efficient robotic drawing path to be executed by the robotic arm. We demonstrate the capability of RoboCoDraw on various face images using a lightweight, safe collaborative robot UR5.Comment: Accepted by AAAI202

Master of Arts

thesisMy thesis recounts Andy Warhol's 1967 controversy at the University of Utah, in which the artist sent actor Alan Midgette to lecture in his place. My first chapter incorporates critical source material from the University's student newspaper the Daily Utah Chronicle, including articles, eyewitness testimony and photographs, to reconstruct a narrative of the event. Challenging the prevailing interpretation of Warhol's Utah lecture as a ‘fraud ‘or ‘hoax,' my thesis considers the entire episode through the lenses of performance and self-portraiture. My second chapter reveals the degree to which Warhol's performance reveals both absence and presence. Sending Midgette to lecture in his place reaffirms Warhol's career-long obsession with masking. Additionally, the Chronicle's photographs of Midgette emphasize this polarity rather than dissolving it. My second chapter also describes self-portraits from various stages in Warhol's career. His inclination to declare, repeat, and conceal is apparent in his Utah performance and throughout his catalog of self-portraits. My thesis reveals how these themes indicate a history of performed identity. This clarifies Warhol's evasive self as subject, providing insight into his performative self-portrait. Throughout his career, Warhol uses self-portraits to reveal his many guises. Warhol's aversion to ‘realistic' self-representation exposes a psychological inability to confront his self- image

Deep robot sketching: an application of deep Q-learning networks for human-like sketching

© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This research has been financed by ALMA, ‘‘Human Centric Algebraic Machine Learning’’, H2020 RIA under EU grant agreement 952091; ROBOASSET, ‘‘Sistemas robóticos inteligentes de diagnóstico y rehabilitación de terapias de miembro superior’’, PID2020-113508RBI00, financed by AEI/10.13039/501100011033; ‘‘RoboCity2030-DIHCM, Madrid Robotics Digital Innovation Hub’’, S2018/NMT-4331, financed by ‘‘Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid’’; ‘‘iREHAB: AI-powered Robotic Personalized Rehabilitation’’, ISCIIIAES-2022/003041 financed by ISCIII and UE; and EU structural fundsThe current success of Reinforcement Learning algorithms for its performance in complex environments has inspired many recent theoretical approaches to cognitive science. Artistic environments are studied within the cognitive science community as rich, natural, multi-sensory, multi-cultural environments. In this work, we propose the introduction of Reinforcement Learning for improving the control of artistic robot applications. Deep Q-learning Neural Networks (DQN) is one of the most successful algorithms for the implementation of Reinforcement Learning in robotics. DQN methods generate complex control policies for the execution of complex robot applications in a wide set of environments. Current art painting robot applications use simple control laws that limits the adaptability of the frameworks to a set of simple environments. In this work, the introduction of DQN within an art painting robot application is proposed. The goal is to study how the introduction of a complex control policy impacts the performance of a basic art painting robot application. The main expected contribution of this work is to serve as a first baseline for future works introducing DQN methods for complex art painting robot frameworks. Experiments consist of real world executions of human drawn sketches using the DQN generated policy and TEO, the humanoid robot. Results are compared in terms of similarity and obtained reward with respect to the reference inputs.Sección Deptal. de Arquitectura de Computadores y Automática (Físicas)Fac. de Ciencias FísicasTRUEUnión Europea. H2020Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033;Comunidad de MadridInstituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)/UEROBOTICSLABpu

Non-photorealistic rendering of portraits

We describe an image-based non-photorealistic rendering pipeline for creating portraits in two styles: The first is a somewhat “puppet” like rendering, that treats the face like a relatively uniform smooth surface, with the geometry being emphasised by shading. The second style is inspired by the artist Julian Opie, in which the human face is reduced to its essentials, i.e. homogeneous skin, thick black lines, and facial features such as eyes and the nose represented in a cartoon manner. Our method is able to automatically generate these stylisations without requiring the input images to be tightly cropped, direct frontal view, and moreover perform abstraction while maintaining the distinctiveness of the portraits (i.e. they should remain recognisable)

A Return to Integrity in Animation: A Liberal Arts Approach to Improving the Academic & Spiritual Influence of Animated Television Shows for Children

This study examines the degradation of ethical, academic, and moral subject matter that has been increasing in animation and children’s programing since the 1980s. Prior to that time, cartoons were infused with silly humor, clean jokes, age-appropriate subject matter, and traditional values and morals. However, over the last forty years, cartoons are now including graphic violence and sexual innuendos while promoting the acceptance and tolerance of rebellious behavior, inappropriate language, and crude jokes. Within the last 10 years children’s programing has begun mainstreaming the LGBTQ+ lifestyle while steering away from or even attacking traditional Christian beliefs, principles, and values. Christian animation such as the popular 1950s and 1960s television program Davey and Goliath and the 1990s program VeggieTales deal with subject matter directly from Biblical stories and Scripture. Although these programs illustrate stories and morals from Scripture, they do not portray typical everyday subjects or situations to which non-religious children or families can relate. Although Davey and Goliath did deal with a little boy’s questions and dilemmas, they did this within the format of a Biblical setting. Unfortunately, by their very nature as Christian or religious programs, the format and subject matter of Davey and Goliath and VeggieTales generally has not engaged groups of non-believers, atheists, agnostics, and secular educators and scientists. This study presents the researcher’s characters, the Rollerbots, the Elite 7, and the Librarians of Historical Culture and Knowledge as a viable alternative for the future of animation. A cartoon featuring these characters would fill this void and work together to address these secular worldview issues and situations, not only from a child’s viewpoint but those of an adolescent and adult as well. Topics and information will be brought forth with scholarly answers to questions from a Christian worldview allowing the truth and principles of the Scriptures to penetrate young hearts and minds without the overtly religious overtone that may alienate non-religious viewers

THE REALISM OF ALGORITHMIC HUMAN FIGURES A Study of Selected Examples 1964 to 2001

It is more than forty years since the first wireframe images of the Boeing Man revealed a stylized hu-man pilot in a simulated pilot's cabin. Since then, it has almost become standard to include scenes in Hollywood movies which incorporate virtual human actors. A trait particularly recognizable in the games industry world-wide is the eagerness to render athletic muscular young men, and young women with hour-glass body-shapes, to traverse dangerous cyberworlds as invincible heroic figures. Tremendous efforts in algorithmic modeling, animation and rendering are spent to produce a realistic and believable appearance of these algorithmic humans. This thesis develops two main strands of research by the interpreting a selection of examples. Firstly, in the computer graphics context, over the forty years, it documents the development of the creation of the naturalistic appearance of images (usually called photorealism ). In particular, it de-scribes and reviews the impact of key algorithms in the course of the journey of the algorithmic human figures towards realism . Secondly, taking a historical perspective, this work provides an analysis of computer graphics in relation to the concept of realism. A comparison of realistic images of human figures throughout history with their algorithmically-generated counterparts allows us to see that computer graphics has both learned from previous and contemporary art movements such as photorealism but also taken out-of-context elements, symbols and properties from these art movements with a questionable naivety. Therefore, this work also offers a critique of the justification of the use of their typical conceptualization in computer graphics. Although the astounding technical achievements in the field of algorithmically-generated human figures are paralleled by an equally astounding disregard for the history of visual culture, from the beginning 1964 till the breakthrough 2001, in the period of the digital information processing machine, a new approach has emerged to meet the apparently incessant desire of humans to create artificial counterparts of themselves. Conversely, the theories of traditional realism have to be extended to include new problems that those active algorithmic human figures present

The digital feminine

This MFA is a visual art critical investigation of digital representations, manipulations, and exploitations of feminine figures in cyberspace. The particular focus of this study is centred on the work of self-titled reality artist Signe Pierce, as well as my own practical body of work: The Digital Feminine. Case studies of Pierce’s practice include Big Sister (2016), Halo (2018), American Reflexxx (2013) and Reality Hack (2016). Through these case studies I examine the nature of identity formation online as underscored by notions of performativity as well as arguments for the use of feminine aesthetics as feminist critique, specifically through the use of the ‘Venus Flytrapping’ method. Jean Baudrillard famously theorised the hyperreal and the simulacra, claiming that human experience is a simulation of reality1. My MFA thesis addresses contemporary concerns relating to issues of reality, perception, the gaze, and identity in an increasingly virtual world. The 20th century witnessed massive changes in technology, and its subsequent commercialisation marked new territories for mass media, politics, entertainment, social life, and the art world. Avant-garde modern art movements shattered previously held standards of traditional artistic production, thus ideas surrounding the ‘art object’ and the role of artists themselves were fundamentally changed. In a postmodern world where nothing is sacred and life is experienced through the simulacra of the screen, the hyperreal takes over. I investigate how real-world socio-political issues, particularly those related to gender, transcend into the digital realm of cyberspace through discussions of Donna Harraway’s ‘cyborg feminism’ and Judith Butler’s ideas of gender performativity, as well as Erving Goffman’s ideas of everyday performativity. My final body of work for the professional art practice component of this MFA is realised in the form of an immersive installation that straddles the virtual and the real. Influenced by digital and hyperreal aesthetics (such as VapourWave), this installation also explores various expressions of femininity that an individual can express both online and in real life