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Fraunhofer's artistic robot at CeBIT (photos)

The Fraunhofer Institute shows off a robot at CeBIT that could take a digital photo and convert it into a drawing. Its day job is measuring the performance of reflective materials.

Stephen Shankland
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Stephen Shankland
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1 of 5 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Fraunhofer's portrait-drawing robot

The Fraunhofer Institute usually uses this robot for gauging the quality of new reflective materials, but at the CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany, it used it to draw portraits. The robot took a digital photo of a person, processed it digitally, drew a line-art portrait, showed it off, erased it, then started over again.
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2 of 5 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Subject poses for a robot-drawn portrait

A CeBIT attendee poses for his Fraunhofer robot portrait.
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3 of 5 Stephen Shankland/CNET

CeBIT portrait-drawing robot clutches its pen

Fraunhofer's portrait-drawing robot is shown here clutching a pen, but it also can pick up an eraser and the portrait itself.
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4 of 5 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Fraunhofer's portrait-drawing robot

Fraunhofer's robot has a camera mounted on top--the white box--to take the subject's photo before converting it to a line-art drawing.
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5 of 5 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Fraunhofer's portrait-drawing robot

The robot points directly at a subject to take her photo before drawing a portrait.

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