Google has released a visualization tool that will allow users to make their own neural network-inspired images, which can be as psychedelic or as nightmarish as they want them to be.
Named the DeepDream software, the tool was revealed by Google two weeks ago as the product of experiments with computer-generated images.
DeepDream is now available for the public to download, with instructions listed in the post about the visualization tool.
Users can submit images and then determine which layers within the network to enhance, the number of iterations to be applied and how far to zoom in. Users also have the option of selecting from several pre-determined networks, according to Google.
The results of running the tool through different images could range from psychedelic to nightmarish, similar to the strange worlds created by human dreams.
"The techniques presented here help us understand and visualize how neural networks are able to carry out difficult classification tasks, improve network architecture, and check what the network has learned during training. It also makes us wonder whether neural networks could become a tool for artists - a new way to remix visual concepts - or perhaps even shed a little light on the roots of the creative process in general," Google engineers wrote in the first post regarding the tool.
DeepDream is based on a code that is used for the purposes of pattern and image recognition, which is used to make computers process information like humans. In this latest application of the software, it looks for patterns and then enhances the image to make it look more like the found pattern, and then the process is repeated.
After several iterations, normal pictures would turn into entirely different images, with rainbow colors and animals being the favorites of DeepDream.
"It'll be interesting to see what imagery people are able to generate," wrote the engineers of Google in the post that revealed the public release of the tool.
"If you post images to Google+, Facebook, or Twitter, be sure to tag them with #deepdream so other researchers can check them out too," the post suggested.
happycat, bifurcated #deepdream pic.twitter.com/wrj54Ctwqv
— cdotwright (@cdotwright) July 2, 2015
“Deepdream”: Google have released the code to generate those psychedelic AI images. https://t.co/l2rnceGOf5 pic.twitter.com/IkCLzKh628 — Stef Lewandowski (@stef) July 2, 2015
This creeps me out more than it should @mtyka @317070 @sedielem #deepdream pic.twitter.com/CN0H0n0fa5
— hut (@hutstaender) July 2, 2015
