你的自拍很快就能從2D變成3D了。

Loom.ai是一家舊金山的科技創業公司，該公司致力于使虛擬通訊更加個性化。該平臺憑借130萬美元的種子資金于本周二正式上線了。只需要一張簡單的數碼相片，loom.ai就能自動生成一個栩栩如生的3D頭像，它可以用于短信、社交媒體、VR游戲甚至是電子商務中（類似于前一陣很是火了一陣的Bitmoji，只不過它是3D版的，而且更加傳神）。

這家人工智能創業公司計劃將該技術授權給第三方平臺，以將其整合到各種新的或現有的應用中。

Loom.ai是由擁有多年從業經驗的視覺效果專家馬赫什·拉瑪薩伯拉瑪尼安和基蘭·巴特兩人創辦的。拉瑪薩伯拉瑪尼安曾在夢工廠擔任電影視效主管，《怪獸史萊克》和《馬達加斯加3》等動畫大片都是出自他的手筆。巴特曾為盧卡斯影業做過《復仇者聯盟》和《加勒比海盜》的面部動畫設計工作。

直到現在，制作逼真的3D頭像都是非常昂貴的，而且基本上只能在好萊塢的工作室里完成。拉瑪薩伯拉瑪尼安和巴特想改變這種情況。

巴特表示：“我們發現，觀眾不滿足于僅僅坐在那里看電影——他們想要互動。我們認為，你應該把用戶帶入到那種體驗當中。也就是說，我們是怎樣把電影明星數字化的，就應該以同樣的方法把普通用戶也數字化。”

Loom.ai公司今年三月成立后，立即進入了美國知名創業孵化器Y Combinator的法眼——Y Combinator一般會向處于原型產品階段的創業公司提供創業指導和2萬美元的資金，以換取對方1.5%的股權。

Loom.ai能夠通過機器學習技術捕捉面部細節。它的軟件收集的關于面部運動的數據越多，就越擅長推測人的其它面部表情。

拉瑪薩伯拉瑪尼安表示：“就算我們不知道所有細節，我們也能推測出關于面部運動規律的很多其他信息。”

這家創業公司背后的投資人主要有丹華資本、Y Combinator、Presence Capital、Anorak Ventures以及GV合伙人喬·克勞斯等。（Anorak Ventures的任事股東格雷格·卡斯爾也是VR公司Oculus的一名種子投資人——目前Oculus已被Facebook收購）。

Loom.ai不愿透露目前有哪些第三方平臺正在測試它的API，不過該公司表示，它的目標是像Facebook這樣擁有大量用戶群的平臺。

拉瑪薩伯拉瑪尼安表示：“Facebook有大量用戶群，將來如果他們愿意用我們的技術將2D照片變成3D頭像，我們還是很樂意的。”

今年10月，Facebook的CEO馬克·扎克伯格貼出了一段視頻。從視頻中可以看出，Facebook正在研究未來通過Oculus Rift設備讓人們通過3D化身在VR世界中實互相聊天。 （財富中文網）

?

作者：Polina Marinova

譯者：樸成奎

Your selfies are about to get a whole lot more realistic.

Loom.ai, a San Francisco-based tech startup that wants to make virtual communication more personal, emerged from stealth mode Tuesday with $1.3 million in seed funding. Using basic digital photos, Loom.ai automatically generates detailed 3D avatars that can be used in text messages, social media, virtual reality games, and e-commerce (think Bitmoji, but 3D and more expressive).

The artificial intelligence startup plans to license the technology to third-party platforms that will incorporate it into new or existing applications.

Loom.ai was founded by seasoned visual effects artists Mahesh Ramasubramanian and Kiran Bhat. Ramasubramanian previously worked at DreamWorks Animation as a visual effects supervisor on movies such as Shrek and Madagascar 3. Bhat worked on facial animation at LucasFilm for movies such as The Avengers and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Until now, creating realistic 3D avatars was an expensive process done exclusively in a Hollywood studio. Ramasubramanian and Bhat want to change that.

“What we found is that the audience no longer wants to sit back and watch a movie — they want to interact,” Bhat says. “We believe that you need to bring the user into the experience, which means figuring out a way to digitize the everyday user just like we used to digitize the movie stars.”

After launching in March, Loom.ai was selected for the Y Combinator fellowship, a remote program that gives prototype-stage startups guidance and $20,000 in funding for 1.5% equity.

Loom.ai relies on machine learning to capture the subtleties of the human face. As the company’s software collects more data about facial movements, it becomes better at guessing and inferring other facial expressions as well.

“Even if we can’t see everything, we can predict a lot of other things about how the face should move,” Ramasubramanian says.

The startup is backed by investors such as Danhua Capital, Y Combinator, Presence Capital, Anorak Ventures, and GV partner Joe Kraus. (Greg Castle, managing partner at Anorak Ventures, was also a seed investor in Oculus, the virtual-reality company now owned by Facebook.)

Loom.ai would not disclose the third-party platforms currently testing its API, but said it’s aiming for platforms like Facebook with a massive user base.

“Facebook has a ton of users, and we would love it if they would use our technology to turn a 2D photograph into a 3D avatar in the future,” Ramasubramanian says.

In October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a video showing how the future of work would involve 3D avatars talking to each other through the Oculus Rift device.