Patents by Inventor Menglei Chai

Menglei Chai has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 12141922
    Abstract: A shape generation system can generate a three-dimensional (3D) model of an object from a two-dimensional (2D) image of the object by projecting vectors onto light cones created from the 2D image. The projected vectors can be used to more accurately create the 3D model of the object based on image element (e.g., pixel) values of the image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2023
    Date of Patent: November 12, 2024
    Assignee: Snap Inc.
    Inventors: Chen Cao, Menglei Chai, Linjie Luo, Soumyadip Sengupta
  • Patent number: 12094073
    Abstract: Systems, computer readable media, and methods herein describe an editing system where a three-dimensional (3D) object can be edited by editing a 2D sketch or 2D RGB views of the 3D object. The editing system uses multi-modal (MM) variational auto-decoders (VADs)(MM-VADs) that are trained with a shared latent space that enables editing 3D objects by editing 2D sketches of the 3D objects. The system determines a latent code that corresponds to an edited or sketched 2D sketch. The latent code is then used to generate a 3D object using the MM-VADs with the latent code as input. The latent space is divided into a latent space for shapes and a latent space for colors. The MM-VADs are trained with variational auto-encoders (VAE) and a ground truth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2024
    Assignee: SNAP INC.
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Sergey Tulyakov, Jian Ren, Hsin-Ying Lee, Kyle Olszewski, Zeng Huang, Zezhou Cheng
  • Publication number: 20240282066
    Abstract: A messaging system performs neural network hair rendering for images provided by users of the messaging system. A method of neural network hair rendering includes processing a three-dimensional (3D) model of fake hair and a first real hair image depicting a first person to generate a fake hair structure, and encoding, using a fake hair encoder neural subnetwork, the fake hair structure to generate a coded fake hair structure. The method further includes processing, using a cross-domain structure embedding neural subnetwork, the coded fake hair structure to generate a fake and real hair structure, and encoding, using an appearance encoder neural subnetwork, a second real hair image depicting a second person having a second head to generate an appearance map. The method further includes processing, using a real appearance renderer neural subnetwork, the appearance map and the fake and real hair structure to generate a synthesized real image.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 2, 2024
    Publication date: August 22, 2024
    Inventors: Artem Bondich, Menglei Chai, Olekssandr Pyshchenko, Jian Ren, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240273809
    Abstract: Methods and systems are disclosed for performing operations for generating a 3D model of a scene. The operations include: receiving a set of two-dimensional (2D) images representing a first view of a real-world environment; applying a machine learning model comprising a neural light field network to the set of 2D images to predict pixel values of a target image representing a second view of the real-world environment, the machine learning model being trained to map a ray origin and direction directly to a given pixel value; and generating a three-dimensional (3D) model of the real-world environment based on the set of 2D images and the predicted target image.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 24, 2024
    Publication date: August 15, 2024
    Inventors: Zeng Huang, Jian Ren, Sergey Tulyakov, Menglei Chai, Kyle Olszewski, Huan Wang
  • Patent number: 12056792
    Abstract: Systems and methods herein describe a motion retargeting system. The motion retargeting system accesses a plurality of two-dimensional images comprising a person performing a plurality of body poses, extracts a plurality of implicit volumetric representations from the plurality of body poses, generates a three-dimensional warping field, the three-dimensional warping field configured to warp the plurality of implicit volumetric representations from a canonical pose to a target pose, and based on the three-dimensional warping field, generates a two-dimensional image of an artificial person performing the target pose.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2024
    Assignee: Snap Inc.
    Inventors: Jian Ren, Menglei Chai, Oliver Woodford, Kyle Olszewski, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240221258
    Abstract: Unsupervised volumetric 3D animation (UVA) of non-rigid deformable objects without annotations learns the 3D structure and dynamics of objects solely from single-view red/green/blue (RGB) videos and decomposes the single-view RGB videos into semantically meaningful parts that can be tracked and animated. Using a 3D autodecoder framework, paired with a keypoint estimator via a differentiable perspective-n-point (PnP) algorithm, the UVA model learns the underlying object 3D geometry and parts decomposition in an entirely unsupervised manner from still or video images. This allows the UVA model to perform 3D segmentation, 3D keypoint estimation, novel view synthesis, and animation. The UVA model can obtain animatable 3D objects from a single or a few images. The UVA method also features a space in which all objects are represented in their canonical, animation-ready form. Applications include the creation of lenses from images or videos for social media applications.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 28, 2022
    Publication date: July 4, 2024
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Hsin-Ying Lee, Willi Menapace, Kyle Olszewski, Jian Ren, Aliaksandr Siarohin, Ivan Skorokhodov, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240221259
    Abstract: The subject technology generates a first image of a face using a GAN model. The subject technology applies 3D virtual hair on the first image to generate a second image with 3D virtual hair. The subject technology projects the second image with 3D virtual hair into a GAN latent space to generate a third image with realistic virtual hair. The subject technology performs a blend of the realistic virtual hair with the first image of the face to generate a new image with new realistic hair that corresponds to the 3D virtual hair. The subject technology trains a neural network that receives the second image with the 3D virtual hair and provides an output image with realistic virtual hair. The subject technology generates using the trained neural network, a particular output image with realistic hair based on a particular input image with 3D virtual hair.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 30, 2022
    Publication date: July 4, 2024
    Inventors: Aleksandr Belskikh, Menglei Chai, Antoine Chassang, Anna Kovalenko, Pavel Savchenkov
  • Publication number: 20240221281
    Abstract: Domain adaptation frameworks for producing a 3D avatar generative adversarial network (GAN) capable of generating an avatar based on a single photographic image. The 3D avatar GAN is produced by training a target domain using an artistic dataset. Each artistic dataset includes a plurality of source images, each associated with a style type, such as caricature, cartoon, and comic. The domain adaptation framework in some implementations starts with a source domain that has been trained according to a 3D GAN and a target domain trained with a 2D GAN. The framework fine-tunes the 2D GAN by training it with the artistic datasets. The resulting 3D avatar GAN generates a 3D artistic avatar and an editing module for performing semantic and geometric edits.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 29, 2022
    Publication date: July 4, 2024
    Inventors: Rameen Abdal, Menglei Chai, Hsin-Ying Lee, Aliaksandr Siarohin, Sergey Tulyakov, Peihao Zhu
  • Publication number: 20240221309
    Abstract: An environment synthesis framework generates virtual environments from a synthesized two-dimensional (2D) satellite map of a geographic area, a three-dimensional (3D) voxel environment, and a voxel-based neural rendering framework. In an example implementation, the synthesized 2D satellite map is generated by a map synthesis generative adversarial network (GAN) which is trained using sample city datasets. The multi-stage framework lifts the 2D map into a set of 3D octrees, generates an octree-based 3D voxel environment, and then converts it into a texturized 3D virtual environment using a neural rendering GAN and a set of pseudo ground truth images. The resulting 3D virtual environment is texturized, lifelike, editable, traversable in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences, and very large in scale.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 29, 2022
    Publication date: July 4, 2024
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Hsin-Ying Lee, Chieh Lin, Willi Menapace, Aliaksandr Siarohin, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240221314
    Abstract: Invertible Neural Networks (INNs) are used to build an Invertible Neural Skinning (INS) pipeline for reposing characters during animation. A Pose-conditioned Invertible Network (PIN) is built to learn pose-conditioned deformations. The end-to-end Invertible Neural Skinning (INS) pipeline is produced by placing two PINs around a differentiable Linear Blend Skinning (LBS) module using a pose-free canonical representation. The PINs help capture the non-linear surface deformations of clothes across poses and alleviate the volume loss suffered from the LBS operation. Since the canonical representation remains pose-free, the expensive mesh extraction is performed exactly once, and the mesh is reposed by warping it with the learned LBS during an inverse pass through the INS pipeline.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 29, 2022
    Publication date: July 4, 2024
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Riza Alp Guler, Yash Mukund Kant, Jian Ren, Aliaksandr Siarohin, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240193855
    Abstract: A 3D-aware generative model for high-quality and controllable scene synthesis uses an abstract object-level representation (i.e., 3D bounding boxes without semantic annotation) as the scene layout prior, which is simple to obtain, general to describe various scene contents, and yet informative to disentangle objects and background. An overall layout for the scene is identified and then each object is located in the layout to facilitate the scene composition process. The object-level representation serves as an intuitive user control for scene editing. Based on such a prior, the system spatially disentangles the whole scene into object-centric generative radiance fields by learning on only 2D images with global-local discrimination. Once the model is trained, users can generate and edit a scene by explicitly controlling the camera and the layout of objects' bounding boxes.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 13, 2022
    Publication date: June 13, 2024
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Hsin-Ying Lee, Aliaksandr Siarohin, Sergey Tulyakov, Yinghao Xu, Ivan Skorokhodov
  • Patent number: 12002146
    Abstract: Methods and systems are disclosed for performing operations for generating a 3D model of a scene. The operations include: receiving a set of two-dimensional (2D) images representing a first view of a real-world environment; applying a machine learning model comprising a neural light field network to the set of 2D images to predict pixel values of a target image representing a second view of the real-world environment, the machine learning model being trained to map a ray origin and direction directly to a given pixel value; and generating a three-dimensional (3D) model of the real-world environment based on the set of 2D images and the predicted target image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2022
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2024
    Assignee: Snap Inc.
    Inventors: Zeng Huang, Jian Ren, Sergey Tulyakov, Menglei Chai, Kyle Olszewski, Huan Wang
  • Patent number: 11995781
    Abstract: A messaging system performs neural network hair rendering for images provided by users of the messaging system. A method of neural network hair rendering includes processing a three-dimensional (3D) model of fake hair and a first real hair image depicting a first person to generate a fake hair structure, and encoding, using a fake hair encoder neural subnetwork, the fake hair structure to generate a coded fake hair structure. The method further includes processing, using a cross-domain structure embedding neural subnetwork, the coded fake hair structure to generate a fake and real hair structure, and encoding, using an appearance encoder neural subnetwork, a second real hair image depicting a second person having a second head to generate an appearance map. The method further includes processing, using a real appearance renderer neural subnetwork, the appearance map and the fake and real hair structure to generate a synthesized real image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2024
    Assignee: Snap Inc.
    Inventors: Artem Bondich, Menglei Chai, Oleksandr Pyshchenko, Jian Ren, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240112401
    Abstract: A system and method are described for generating 3D garments from two-dimensional (2D) scribble images drawn by users. The system includes a conditional 2D generator, a conditional 3D generator, and two intermediate media including dimension-coupling color-density pairs and flat point clouds that bridge the gap between dimensions. Given a scribble image, the 2D generator synthesizes dimension-coupling color-density pairs including the RGB projection and density map from the front and rear views of the scribble image. A density-aware sampling algorithm converts the 2D dimension-coupling color-density pairs into a 3D flat point cloud representation, where the depth information is ignored. The 3D generator predicts the depth information from the flat point cloud. Dynamic variations per garment due to deformations resulting from a wearer's pose as well as irregular wrinkles and folds may be bypassed by taking advantage of 2D generative models to bridge the dimension gap in a non-parametric way.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2022
    Publication date: April 4, 2024
    Inventors: Panagiotis Achlioptas, Menglei Chai, Hsin-Ying Lee, Kyle Olszewski, Jian Ren, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20240029346
    Abstract: A system to enable 3D hair reconstruction and rendering from a single reference image which performs a multi-stage process that utilizes both a 3D implicit representation and a 2D parametric embedding space.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 21, 2022
    Publication date: January 25, 2024
    Inventors: Zeng Huang, Menglei Chai, Sergey Tulyakov, Kyle Olszewski, Hsin-Ying Lee
  • Publication number: 20230419599
    Abstract: A method for applying lighting conditions to a virtual object in an augmented reality (AR) device is described. In one aspect, the method includes generating, using a camera of a mobile device, an image, accessing a virtual object corresponding to an object in the image, identifying lighting parameters of the virtual object based on a machine learning model that is pre-trained with a paired dataset, the paired dataset includes synthetic source data and synthetic target data, the synthetic source data includes environment maps and 3D scans of items depicted in the environment map, the synthetic target data includes a synthetic sphere image rendered in the same environment map, applying the lighting parameters to the virtual object, and displaying, in a display of the mobile device, the shaded virtual object as a layer to the image.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 22, 2022
    Publication date: December 28, 2023
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Sergey Demyanov, Yunqing Hu, Istvan Marton, Daniil Ostashev, Aleksei Podkin
  • Publication number: 20230410376
    Abstract: System and methods for compressing image-to-image models. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have achieved success in generating high-fidelity images. An image compression system and method adds a novel variant to class-dependent parameters (CLADE), referred to as CLADE-Avg, which recovers the image quality without introducing extra computational cost. An extra layer of average smoothing is performed between the parameter and normalization layers. Compared to CLADE, this image compression system and method smooths abrupt boundaries, and introduces more possible values for the scaling and shift. In addition, the kernel size for the average smoothing can be selected as a hyperparameter, such as a 3×3 kernel size. This method does not introduce extra multiplications but only addition, and thus does not introduce much computational overhead, as the division can be absorbed into the parameters after training.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 28, 2023
    Publication date: December 21, 2023
    Inventors: Jian Ren, Menglei Chai, Sergey Tulyakov, Qing Jin
  • Publication number: 20230394681
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure involve a system comprising a computer-readable storage medium storing at least one program and a method for accessing a set of images depicting at least a portion of a face. A set of facial regions of the face is identified, each facial region of the set of facial regions intersecting another facial region with at least one common vertex that is a member of a set of facial vertices. For each facial region of the set of facial regions, a weight formed from a set of region coefficients is generated. Based on the set of facial regions and the weight of each facial region of the set of facial regions, the face is tracked across the set of images.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 18, 2023
    Publication date: December 7, 2023
    Inventors: Chen Cao, Menglei Chai, Linjie Luo, Oliver Woodford
  • Patent number: 11836835
    Abstract: Systems and methods herein describe novel motion representations for animating articulated objects consisting of distinct parts. The described systems and method access source image data, identify driving image data to modify image feature data in the source image sequence data, generate, using an image transformation neural network, modified source image data comprising a plurality of modified source images depicting modified versions of the image feature data, the image transformation neural network being trained to identify, for each image in the source image data, a driving image from the driving image data, the identified driving image being implemented by the image transformation neural network to modify a corresponding source image in the source image data using motion estimation differences between the identified driving image and the corresponding source image, and stores the modified source image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2023
    Assignee: Snap Inc.
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Jian Ren, Aliaksandr Siarohin, Sergey Tulyakov, Oliver Woodford
  • Publication number: 20230386158
    Abstract: Systems, computer readable media, and methods herein describe an editing system where a three-dimensional (3D) object can be edited by editing a 2D sketch or 2D RGB views of the 3D object. The editing system uses multi-modal (MM) variational auto-decoders (VADs)(MM-VADs) that are trained with a shared latent space that enables editing 3D objects by editing 2D sketches of the 3D objects. The system determines a latent code that corresponds to an edited or sketched 2D sketch. The latent code is then used to generate a 3D object using the MM-VADs with the latent code as input. The latent space is divided into a latent space for shapes and a latent space for colors. The MM-VADs are trained with variational auto-encoders (VAE) and a ground truth.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 22, 2022
    Publication date: November 30, 2023
    Inventors: Menglei Chai, Sergey Tulyakov, Jian Ren, Hsin-Ying Lee, Kyle Olszewski, Zeng Huang, Zezhou Cheng