Robotic Photographer

Boojum137 writes " ExtremeTech has an article on a robotic wedding photographer named Lewis. Lewis's hardware stats are modest, so he uses a clever trick to locate people based on skin tone, which is also independent of race. After locating potential subjects with a myriad of sensors, including sonar, laser range finders, and infra-red, he tries to frame the shot according to photographic rules of composition. But the real innovation behind this "red trashcan" is its ability to fade into the background. According to Lewis's creators at Washington University's Media and Machines lab, because of the robot's passive nature, people tend to ignore it after short period of ogling. This allows for some great natural shots, instead of the typical forced and self-conscious shots from human wedding photographers. And, in case you were wondering, Lewis is going to live up to his name in November."

Lewis + Paparazzi = Terminator 3?

[Komrade S.]

Well, I guess X10 just got made irrelevant. Watch those celebrities run in terror as their sex lives are captured by Lewis the Robot. At least I won't have to see the annoying popups anymore.

you can barely see it

[AssFace]

that thing totally just blends. I could see how people would just not notice a fire engine red barrel wandering through a party.

Re:you can barely see it

[Zephy]

of course that all depends on your blood-alchohol level at the time. This tending to be quite high at wedding you could experience some problems with partygoers hugging the robot, and proclaiming that it is their "Beshtest besht friend in thar whole wide world". Wonder if the robot could be programmed to recognise drunk people, and call a cab at appropriate times.

Going haywire

[LarsBT]

In other news:

A robotic wedding photographer went haywire earlier today. The "Lewis" robot killed and injuring half a wedding party when it suddenly became selfawareand began shooting people with it's build-in laser.

In a comment from the University who build it claimed that the laser-range finders were harmless.

The casualties were quite high since noone could hide from the infrared cameras. "Lewis" found them and did away with them.

The weird thing was "Lewis" suddenly seized its frenzy when it ran out of film??

Sees Skin....

[efatapo]

Does this mean the women with the smallest dresses will be photographed the most?

I think the robot is male

[Aceticon]

Lewis is able to determine that it's seeing a human by recognizing that it's looking at a pair of legs. Once this realization is made, Lewis gazes up to look at the individual's face.

That pretty much describes the way most guys recognize chicks (especially in sunny climates)

Yes...

[Zephy]

it *was* designed by students, after all

kiss the bride

[Scrameustache]

because of the robot's passive nature, people tend to ignore it after short period of ogling. This allows for some great natural shots, instead of the typical forced and self-conscious shots from human wedding photographers.

Yeah, but can it kiss the bride [bdnet.com]?

Re:This is a good thing

[Tackhead]

> What it does show is that it is feasible to do more work in this area - despite its size, people lose interest (although I would imagine this is more to do with wedding-associated alcohol than anything else...) and let it click away without ogling at it - all it is is fairly simple technology appliying simple rules (e.g. face should be in centre or photo or wherever) and then takes a few pictures.

It's a good thing so many of us geeks are so stereotypically asexual.

I mean, this would be the perfect thing to have at a /.er's wedding. Except that you'd just get roll after roll of close-ups of geeks' noses as they examine the wedcambot for 3 hours while the reception goes on in the background.

Groom included. ("Huh? Oh yeah, yeah, I do, I do, whatever. Just gimme a few minutes, I think I can get a Quake server running on this thing! Tell the best d00d to bring his laptop, we're gonna have wireless LAN gaming at the reception!")

Re:As a former wedding photographer,

[MicroBerto]

It always hurts when you're told that you can be replaced with a shell script ;-)