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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Beauty with the Push of a (Digital) Button

Samples of photos manipulated with the 'Beauty Machine.' Originals are in the top row, and the more 'beautiful' results on the bottom row.


Scientists say facial beauty is not necessarily in the eye of the beholder, but is a matter of measurements and ratios. As a result, a new “beauty machine” can now turn a woman’s photo into the likeness of a cover model with the push of a button.

Its Photoshop-like abilities may well serve as a guide for plastic surgeons in modifying facial features. It could even be incorporated into digital cameras to make people’s images more instantly perfect.

"Beauty, contrary to what most people think, is not simply in the eye of the beholder," said lead researcher Daniel Cohen-Or of the Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences at Tel Aviv University.

Beauty Is In the Ratios

Attractiveness ~ for men or women ~ can be objectified by a computer and boiled down to a function of mathematical distances or ratios, he said.

"Beauty can be quantified by mathematical measurements and ratios,” Cohen-Or continued. “It can be defined as average distances between features, which a majority of people agree are the most beautiful. For us, every picture in this research project is just a collection of numbers."

Cohen-Or and colleagues asked 68 Israeli and German men and women, ages 25 to 40, to rank the beauty of 93 different men's and women's faces on a scale of 1 to 7. The scores were entered into a database and correlated to 250 different measurements and facial features, such as ratios of the nose, chin and distance from ears to eyes. From this, they created an algorithm of "desirable elements of attractiveness."

Click here for the LiveScience article.

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