Fraunhofer's artistic robot at CeBIT (photos)

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.

A CeBIT attendee poses for his Fraunhofer robot portrait.

Fraunhofer's portrait-drawing robot is shown here clutching a pen, but it also can pick up an eraser and the portrait itself.

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.

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