Endless Loops: Detecting and Animating Periodic Patterns in Still Images

TL;DR

This paper introduces an algorithm that automatically detects periodic structures in a single image to generate seamless, animated loops, enabling quick creation of cinemagraphs on mobile devices with user preference validation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel automated method for creating seamless cinemagraphs from a single image by detecting periodic patterns and generating displacement fields, outperforming manual and previous automated approaches.

Findings

Created over 350,000 cinemagraphs via a mobile app.

Users prefer our automated method for surreal and structured animations.

Cinemagraphs are generated in under a second on mobile devices.

Abstract

We present an algorithm for producing a seamless animated loop from a single image. The algorithm detects periodic structures, such as the windows of a building or the steps of a staircase, and generates a non-trivial displacement vector field that maps each segment of the structure onto a neighboring segment along a user- or auto-selected main direction of motion. This displacement field is used, together with suitable temporal and spatial smoothing, to warp the image and produce the frames of a continuous animation loop. Our cinemagraphs are created in under a second on a mobile device. Over 140,000 users downloaded our app and exported over 350,000 cinemagraphs. Moreover, we conducted two user studies that show that users prefer our method for creating surreal and structured cinemagraphs compared to more manual approaches and compared to previous methods.