Dear Fellow Scholars, this is Two Minute Papers with Dr. Károly Zsolnai-Fehér.
Today we are going to build the best virtual toaster that you have ever seen.
And it’s going to be so easy that it hardly seems possible.
All this technique asks for is our input geometry to be a collection of parametric shapes.
I’ll tell you in a moment what that is, but for now, let’s see that toaster.
Hmm, this looks fine, but what if we feel that it is not quite tall enough?
Well, with this technique, look!
It can change the height of it, which is fantastic, but something else also happens!
Look, it also understands the body’s relation to other objects that are connected to it.
We can also change the location of the handle, the slits can be adjusted symmetrically, and
when we move the toasts, it understands that it moves together with the handles.
This is super useful, for instance, have a look at this train example, where if we change
the wheels, it also understands that not only the wheels, but the wheel wells also have
to change as well.
This concept also works really well on this curtain.
And all this means that we can not only dream up and execute these changes ourselves without
having to ask a trained artist, but we can also do it super quickly and efficiently.
Loving it.
Just to demonstrate how profound and non-trivial this understanding of interrelations is, here
is an example of a complex object.
Without this technique, if we grab one thing, exactly that one thing moves, which is represented
by one of these sliders changing here.
However, if we would grab this contraption in the real world, not only one thing would
move, nearly every part would move at the same time.
So, does this new method know that?
Oh wow, it does, look at that!
And, at the same time, not one, but many sliders are dancing around beautifully.
Now, I mentioned that the requirement was that the input object has to be a parametric
shape, this is something that can be generated from intuitive parameters, for instance, we
can generate a circle if we say what the radius of the circle should be.
The radius would be the parameter here, and the resulting circle is hence a parametric
shape.
In many domains, this is standard procedure, for instance, many computer aided design systems
work with parametric objects.
But we are not done yet, not even close!
It also understands how the brush sizes that we use relates to our thinking.
Don’t believe it?
Let’s have a look together!
Right after we click, it detects that we have a small brush size, and therefore infers that
we probably wish to do something with the handle, and, there we go!
That is really cool.
And now, let’s increase the brush size and click nearby, and, bam!
There we go!
Now it knows that we wish to interact with the drawer.
Same with the doors.
And, hold on to your papers, because to demonstrate the utility of their technique, the authors
also made a scene just for us.
Look!
Nice - this is no less than a Two Minute Papers branded chronometer!
And here, we can change the proportions, the dial, the hands, whatever we wish, and it
is so easy and showcases the utility of the new method so well.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, let’s see it ticking…and…will it be two minutes?
Well, close enough.
Certainly, much closer to two minutes than the length of these videos, that is for sure.
Thank you so much for the authors for taking time off their busy day just to make this.
So, this truly is a wonderful tool because even a novice artist without 3D modeling expertise
can apply meaningful changes to complex pieces of geometry.
No trained artist is required!
What a time to be alive!
Now, this didn’t quite fit anywhere in this video, but I really wanted to show you this
heartwarming message from Mark Chen, research scientist at OpenAI.
This really showcases one of the best parts of my job, and that is when the authors of
the paper come in and enjoy the results with you Fellow Scholars.
Loving it.
Thank you so much again!
Also make sure to check out Yannic’s channel for cool in-depth videos on machine learning
works.
The link is available
in
the video description.
Thanks for watching and for your generous support, and I'll see you next time!