Provided/Bala Group
Computer graphics are moving off the movie screen and into everyday life. Home remodeling specialists, for example, may soon be able to to show you how your kitchen would look with marble countertops or stainless steel appliances. To do this, computers have to be able to recognize and simulate common materials; so Cornell researchers have drawn on uniquely human skills to build a database of surfaces computers can work with. OpenSurfaces offers more than 25,000 annotated images that may be used by architects, designers and home remodelers in visualizing their work, and could be a rich source for computer graphics and computer vision researchers looking for ways to recognize materials or synthesize images of them. Of particular value, the researchers said, is that the images were collected from the real world - the Flickr photo-sharing site - rather than sterile laboratory samples. "This catches real materials that show up in the world, including wear and tear and weathering," said Kavita Bala, associate professor of computer science. "One of the things missing in computer graphics is the realism of normal life." The crowdsourcing user interface the researchers developed to teach a team of human reviewers to find and describe the images also represents a valuable contribution to the field.
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