"Meta Releases Open-Source AI Project to Transform Your Doodles into Engaging Animations"

Meta has open-sourced an innovative artificial intelligence project that allows users to bring their doodles to life. Named Animated Drawings, this tool enables developers to create enhanced experiences by building upon the existing framework.

Originally launched by the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team in 2021, the web-based tool invites users to upload a drawing of a single human-like character or choose from a demo figure. For those using their own doodles, a consent form is presented, requesting permission for Meta to utilize the drawing to improve its models, though consent is not necessary to use the tool.

To animate your creation, you'll need to resize a capture box to fit your drawing. The tool also provides a pen and eraser for refining your sketch before positioning the joints. Once your adjustments are complete, Animated Drawings generates an animated version of your artwork, offering a variety of preset animations across four categories: dance, funny, jumping, and walking.

Animated Drawings employs advanced object detection models, pose estimation techniques, and image processing methods to digitize user drawings. It then applies traditional computer graphics techniques to deform and animate these images.

Since the demo's launch, users have shared over 1.6 million images for training purposes, including a mix of logos, anime characters, and other creative concepts, even though the tool is designed specifically for human figures. This diverse range of uploads, along with requests for additional features like sound effects and text overlays, highlighted a growing interest in richer drawing-to-animation experiences.

As a result, Meta has open-sourced the project, providing access to a dataset of approximately 180,000 drawings. By sharing the models and code, Meta aims to inspire developers to innovate and collaborate, fostering a vibrant open-source community.