Comixify: Transform video into a comics

In this paper, we propose a solution to transform a video into a comics. We approach this task using a neural style algorithm based on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Several recent works in the field of Neural Style Transfer showed that producing an image in the style of another image is feasible. In this paper, we build up on these works and extend the existing set of style transfer use cases with a working application of video comixification. To that end, we train an end-to-end solution that transforms input video into a comics in two stages. In the first stage, we propose a state-of-the-art keyframes extraction algorithm that selects a subset of frames from the video to provide the most comprehensive video context and we filter those frames using image aesthetic estimation engine. In the second stage, the style of selected keyframes is transferred into a comics. To provide the most aesthetically compelling results, we selected the most state-of-the art style transfer solution and based on that implement our own ComixGAN framework. The final contribution of our work is a Web-based working application of video comixification available at http://comixify.ii.pw.edu.pl.

Neural Comic Style Transfer: Case Study

The work by Gatys et al. [1] recently showed a neural style algorithm that can produce an image in the style of another image. Some further works introduced various improvements regarding generalization, quality and efficiency, but each of them was mostly focused on styles such as paintings, abstract images or photo-realistic style. In this paper, we present a comparison of how state-of-the-art style transfer methods cope with transferring various comic styles on different images. We select different combinations of Adaptive Instance Normalization [11] and Universal Style Transfer [16] models and confront them to find their advantages and disadvantages in terms of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Finally, we present the results of a survey conducted on over 100 people that aims at validating the evaluation results in a real-life application of comic style transfer.