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Microsoft updates AI-powered Pix app with Photosynth and Pix Comix features
Microsoft Corp. Wednesday announced an update to its artificial intelligence-powered Pix app that is aimed at making iOS panoramas better.
The updated app also includes Pix Comix, which uses AI to select the most interesting frames in a video and turn them into a comic strip. This feature is similar to Storyboard for Android, an experimental app developed by Google LLC and released last week.
The Pix app was launched last year as an alternative to the built-in iPhone camera app and uses AI, computational photography and video stabilization. This year has seen the Pix app updated with Prisma-like art filters and the ability to capture whiteboards and business cards and turn them into useful images. The app is currently still only available in iOS, but Microsoft is working on a version for Android.
To get started with the new Pix features, update your app or download it from App Store.
Photosynth
The new panorama tool is called Photosynth and changes up the panoramic photo by providing additional perspective to the photo. A conventional panoramic with the iPhone camera only allows users to move the camera from left to right. With Photosynth, users can move the camera left, right, up and down, as well as change directions while shooting. Users can also create vertical panoramas, ideal for waterfalls and skyscrapers.
Microsoft launched a separate Photosynth app back in 2008, but later discontinued it earlier this year. The new Photosynth feature in Pix leverages some of the same technology from the original app and Microsoft plans to integrate more of the original features into Pix in the future.
Pix Comix
Using the core Pix feature “Moment Capture” and deep learning, the new Pix Comix feature (main image) will analyze a video, select the best frames and automatically generate a comic strip. The AI model will look for things such as faces with eyes open and interesting scenes, but will avoid blurry frames.
Pix Comix will select three images and display it in a comic strip. Users can then add speech bubbles and custom text to the comic strip.
Google’s Storyboard app differs slightly in that users can select the layout of the comic strip and automatically adds different styles to the comic strip.
Images: Microsoft
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