Madame Tussaud, step aside. Walt Disney Company scientists (not at an oxymoron, it turns out) have developed a new process to replicate real people’s facial expressions in ultra-sophisticated detail on the silicon skin of animatronic robots. The process involves 3D scanning of the person’s face, then modelling that imagery onto specially designed synthetic skin. “With our method, we can simply create a robotic clone of a real person,” says Dr. Bernd Bickel, researcher at Disney Research, Zurich (Zurich?).
The results are eerily precise, as you can see in this video. Science, Space & Robots has the full video explanation and a link to the research paper behind it all.
Thanks to the invaluable Maria Popova’s Explore blog for the tip.
