This article was taken from the March 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
You don't need a multi-million-pound budget to create awesome CGI effects.
Now, with just a single photograph and software developed by computer scientist Kevin Karsch and colleagues at the University of illinois, you can add synthetic objects to a scene in a realistic way (see gallery).
The program requires minimal user input -- quickly marking lines where the walls and ceiling meet and highlighting light sources.
With that information, it works out how light would strike the synthetic object when placed within the scene. Karsch's final trick is to compare this image with the original and adjust the light parameters until they match. "Our technique will make inserting synthetic objects easier for visual effects artists," Karsch says. "Inserting objects into historical photos is also possible."
Remember when Optimus Prime met JFK? Yeah, us too.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
