AI Image Generation Meets Virtual Dress Up

Image generators have really taken off thanks to machine learning, and all kinds of new ideas have been turned on in people’s heads as a result. OOTDiffusion is one such project, its job being to allow virtual try-ons of clothing by combining a picture of a person and an item of clothing, and doing so in a coherent way.

A model sporting a 2021 Remoticon shirt.

When it comes to AI image generators, maintaining consistency of a particular subject in a picture while changing or combining other parts of the image isn’t a trivial task. (If you’re unfamiliar with the basics of how diffusion-type AI image generators work, we have you covered.)

Virtual try-on of clothing is not a new idea, but it’s also far from being a completely solved problem. It’s easy to feed a system high-quality images of people and clothing and ask it to combine them, but the outputs rarely emerge with all their limbs intact, figuratively speaking.

OOTDiffusion addresses the two big challenges in this area: making sure the outputs look natural and realistic, and preserving as much of the garment’s appearance and qualities as possible in the process.

It seems to to a very good job, and you can try it for yourself in the online demo. Check out the research paper for more details, and the GitHub repository provides all the code if you’d like to get a little more hands-on.

Directing Ambient Light For Some Extra Glow

[Yuichiro Morimoto] wanted to create a decorative lamp, one that wasn’t burdened with batteries or wires, but used just the ambient light in the room to create a directed glow effect. Using a coloured circular acrylic sheet, with a special coating (not specified) ambient light impinging on the surface is diffused toward the edge. This centre sheet is embedded in an opalescent sheet, which scatters the light from the center sheet, giving a pleasant glow, kind of akin to a solar corona. An additional diffuser cover sheet on the front covers over the edge to hide it, and further enhance the glow effect.

Details of the ‘special coating’ are scarce, with the coloured sheet described as a condenser plate. This clearly isn’t the same as diffuser plastic, as that cannot be seen through as clearly as some of the photographs show. So we’re a little stumped on this one! Please answer in the comments if you can, ahem, shed some light on this one!

When talking about ambient light, many people will think more along the lines of active lighting, for example, adaptive ambient light around a TV like this hack.

Continue reading “Directing Ambient Light For Some Extra Glow”

Friday Hack Chat: LED Diffusion

A decade ago, the first Arduino projects featuring addressable RGB LEDs came on the scene, and the world hasn’t been the same since. Now we have full wall video displays with WS2812s and APA102s, wearable blinky, and entire suits of armor made of LEDs. The future is bright, and in RGB.

For this week’s Hack Chat, we’re going to be talking all about how to maintain the blinky without eye-searing brightness. It’s the LED Diffusion Hack Chat, full of tips and tricks on how to get the glowey without it being imprinted on your retina.

Our guest for this week’s Hack Chat is the incredible Becky Stern. Becky is one of the most prolific makers around and has a long history of fabricating some really, really cool stuff. She’s published hundreds of tutorials on everything from microcontrollers to computerized knitting machines, and has been featured by dozens of media outlets including the BBC, CNN, The Late Show with Colbert, VICE, and Forbes. Right now, she’s working at Autodesk with Instructables.

During this Hack Chat, we’re going to be talking all about diffusing LEDs, with topics including:

  • Taking some sandpaper to LEDs
  • Light pipes
  • 3D printed LED enclosures
  • Looking into a bright blue LED with your remaining eye

You are, of course, encouraged to add your own questions to the discussion. You can do that by leaving a comment on the Hack Chat Event Page and we’ll put that in the queue for the Hack Chat discussion.join-hack-chat

Our Hack Chats are live community events on the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week is just like any other, and we’ll be gathering ’round our video terminals at noon, Pacific, on Friday, August 17th. Need a countdown timer? Here ‘ya go.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io.

You don’t have to wait until Friday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.