Documents posted on the official Disney Research website details plans for what they refer to as physical face cloning.
“We propose a complete process for designing, simulating and fabricating synthetic skin for an animatronics character that mimics the face of a given subject and its expressions,” the document states.
Scientists and researchers based in a Zürich lab were motivated by the idea of translating the company’s ability to create realistic virtual worlds – seen, for example, in movies released by Disney-owned Pixar – into tangible actuality.
“We are naturally intrigued by the prospect of creating virtual humans in the likeness of ourselves – and it is not far-fetched to say that this is also a driving force for computer graphics research,” the document noted in its introduction. “While the latter strives to photorealistically [sic] create human characters on a computer screen, animatronics aims at creating physical robot characters that move and look like real humans.”
The multi-step process begins with a three-dimensional scan to assess the detailed topography of a human face. Measurements that catalog minute details such as facial hairs are taken and entered into a virtual rendering of the model’s visage.
( via tampa.cbslocal.com )