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my head is spinning

Adobe shows off 3D rotation tool for flat drawings

Project Turntable uses machine learning to craft posable 3D models from 2D vectors.

Kyle Orland – | 83
This dragon was a 2D side-view drawing just a moment ago. Credit: Adobe
This dragon was a 2D side-view drawing just a moment ago. Credit: Adobe
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At this point, we're used to AI-powered image tools that instantly pull off previously high-effort edits, like filling in the missing bits of a scene or erasing unwanted parts of a photo without affecting the background. But a new Adobe Illustrator tool demonstrated at this week's Adobe MAX conference takes 2D image editing things in a literal different direction, letting artists instantly transform 2D vector images into 3D models that can be rotated around the axis of the screen itself.

"Project Turntable" is currently just a tightly controlled demo, part of a set of "Sneaks" that aren't ready to roll out to the public just yet. But even the short early demo shown on stage has some intriguing time-saving implications for working 2D artists.

You spin me right round

In a quick five-minute stage presentation at the MAX conference, Adobe researcher Zhiqin Chen starts with a 2D vectorized Illustrator scene of a warrior fighting a dragon. The warrior is staring directly out of the screen, though, and turning him to face the dragon on his left would usually require "redraw[ing] the entire shape, which is going to take a lot of time," as Chen points out.

The Project Turntable on-stage demo at Adobe MAX.

With Project Turntable, though, Chen simply selects the warrior and clicks a "generate views" button. After about four seconds of loading, Chen has a new machine-generated 3D model of the warrior that can be rotated horizontally around the vertical axis with a slider. The rotation covers a full 360 degrees (in roughly 20 degree increments), showing off the previously unseen back of the warrior's head and convincing side views of his sword hand, for instance.

Elsewhere in the demo, Chen also shows off vertical rotations along the horizontal axis (though these seem to fall well short of the full 360-degree rotations for the horizontal movement). Chen also shows off multiple-angled viewpoints of a single bat being updated in one fell swoop with a change to the original vectors.

“That’s wizardry”

The on-stage demo showed off rotations for a number of varied images, from largely symmetrical dragons, horses, and bats to more complex shapes like a sketch of a bread basket or a living cup of fries (complete with arms, legs, eyes, and a mouth). In each case, the machine-learning algorithm does an admirable job assuming unseen parts of the model from what's available in the original 2D view, extrapolating a full set of legs on a side-view horse or the bottom of the Fry Man's shoes, for instance.

Vertical rotation lets you see the bottom of Fry Man's shoes here.
Credit: Adobe
Vertical rotation lets you see the bottom of Fry Man's shoes here. Credit: Adobe

Still, we're sure the vector models on stage were chosen to show Project Turntable in its best light. Without a public testable version, it's hard to say how it would handle weird edge cases or drawings that don't closely match objects in its training data (which we don't know the extent of).

Even so, what was shown on stage has some obvious appeal for working artists. After seeing the on-stage video, Ars Creative Director Aurich Lawson exclaimed on our internal Slack, "That’s wizardry. I don't know how well it really works—I bet not nearly as good as that demo a lot of the time—but I’m impressed."

Project Turntable is also notable because it augments original work by human artists rather than replacing it with images created whole cloth by AI. While Project Turntable saves those artists the effort of drawing their 2D objects and characters from multiple angles, that human artist is still responsible for the overall style and look of that original work. Maintaining that human style seems to be a key point for Adobe, which points out that "even after the rotation, the vector graphics stay true to the original shape so you don’t lose any of the design’s essence."

Adobe's Brian Domingo told the Creative Bloq blog there's still no guarantee that Project Turntable will ever be released commercially. Given the obvious enthusiasm of the demo crowd at the MAX conference, though, we think it's safe to assume that Adobe will do whatever it can to get this feature ready for prime time as soon as possible.

Photo of Kyle Orland
Kyle Orland Senior Gaming Editor
Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.
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MichaelHurd
MichaelHurd
For the last few years, I've been impressed with how 3D animation has started using techniques to look more like 2D animation. I never thought we could go the opposite direction! Obviously, there will be a lot more limitations, but this looks very impressive.
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