Optimization and Mobile Deployment for Anthropocene Neural Style Transfer

TL;DR

This paper introduces AnthropoCam, a mobile neural style transfer system optimized for transforming images of Anthropocene landscapes, balancing style expression with semantic preservation for real-time environmental visualization.

Contribution

It systematically investigates NST parameters for Anthropocene textures and implements a fast, mobile-compatible pipeline for real-time environmental visualization.

Findings

Optimal NST parameters identified for Anthropocene textures

Achieves 3-5 second inference on mobile devices

Enables real-time participatory environmental engagement

Abstract

This paper presents AnthropoCam, a mobile-based neural style transfer (NST) system optimized for the visual synthesis of Anthropocene environments. Unlike conventional artistic NST, which prioritizes painterly abstraction, stylizing human-altered landscapes demands a careful balance between amplifying material textures and preserving semantic legibility. Industrial infrastructures, waste accumulations, and modified ecosystems contain dense, repetitive patterns that are visually expressive yet highly susceptible to semantic erosion under aggressive style transfer. To address this challenge, we systematically investigate the impact of NST parameter configurations on the visual translation of Anthropocene textures, including feature layer selection, style and content loss weighting, training stability, and output resolution. Through controlled experiments, we identify an optimal parameter manifold that maximizes stylistic expression while preventing semantic erasure. Our results demonstrate that appropriate combinations of convolutional depth, loss ratios, and resolution scaling enable the faithful transformation of anthropogenic material properties into a coherent visual language. Building on these findings, we implement a low-latency, feed-forward NST pipeline deployed on mobile devices. The system integrates a React Native frontend with a Flask-based GPU backend, achieving high-resolution inference within 3-5 seconds on general mobile hardware. This enables real-time, in-situ visual intervention at the site of image capture, supporting participatory engagement with Anthropocene landscapes. By coupling domain-specific NST optimization with mobile deployment, AnthropoCam reframes neural style transfer as a practical and expressive tool for real-time environmental visualization in the Anthropocene.