Meta unveils an exciting new open-source AI project that enables users to animate their doodles effortlessly. The Animated Drawings tool, which was first launched as a web-based version by the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team in 2021, has since captured the hearts and minds of creatives all over the world. With the release of Animated Drawings as an open-source project, Meta hopes to spur innovation by empowering developers to create new, richer experiences.
To bring your doodles to life, the process is simple. First, users upload a drawing of a single human-like character or choose a demo figure. If you opt for your own doodle, you’ll see a consent form asking for permission to use your drawing to train its models. However, consent is not necessary to use the tool. Next, you can tweak the drawing using a pen and eraser, resize a capture box, and adjust the joints. Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll have an animated version of your sketch. The tool provides users with a variety of preset animations from four categories: dance, funny, jumping, and walking.
Animated Drawings uses advanced AI models, including object detection, pose estimation, and image processing-based segmentation methods, to capture and animate digital versions of drawings. The tool then uses traditional computer graphics techniques to deform and animate the image.
Since its launch, users have granted Meta permission to use over 1.6 million images for training purposes. Although the tool stipulates that only human figures will work, some folks uploaded images of company logos, anime characters, fish, and stuffed animals. The project’s broad appeal, coupled with requests for additional toolsets, including sound effects and text overlays, convinced Meta to open-source Animated Drawings. The project is accompanied by a dataset of roughly 180,000 drawings, providing a solid starting point for developers to build on and extend the project while fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration within the open-source community.
