特拉維夫大學布拉瓦尼克電腦科學院教授丹尼爾?科亨—奧爾主持編寫了一套“美容軟件”，幫助愛美之人調整照片上的五官比例，在不改變面貌基本特征的基礎上讓面容變得更富有吸引力，在指導整形手術實施方面也有較大應用前景。這一軟件可將照片中的普通人變得像雜志封面模特一般具有吸引力。

Researchers have created a "beauty machine" they say can turn a woman's photo into the likeness of a cover model with the push of a button.

Researchers have created a "beauty machine" they say can turn a woman's photo into the likeness of a cover model with the push of a button.

The goal is not just to toy with pictures. Sure, the new computer software could help editors distort magazine cover photos even more than they already do. But it could also guide plastic surgeons in efforts to achieve some perceived level of perfection in a patient.

Or the software might even be incorporated into future digital cameras to make us all appear gorgeous, the researchers suggest.

"Beauty, contrary to what most people think, is not simply in the eye of the beholder," said lead researcher Daniel Cohen-Or of the Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences at Tel Aviv University.

Attractiveness - for men or women - can be objectified by a computer and boiled down to a function of mathematical distances or ratios, Cohen-Or said, admitting that the work is likely to be controversial.

"Beauty can be quantified by mathematical measurements and ratios. It can be defined as average distances between features, which a majority of people agree are the most beautiful," he said. "I don't claim to know much about beauty. For us, every picture in this research project is just a collection of numbers."

All this is actually backed by a study, published recently in the proceedings of Siggraph, an annual computer graphics conference.

Cohen-Or and colleagues asked 68 Israeli and German men and women, ages 25 to 40, to rank the beauty of 93 different men's and women's faces on a scale of 1 to 7. The scores were entered into a database and correlated to 250 different measurements and facial features, such as ratios of the nose, chin and distance from ears to eyes, according to a statement from the team. From this, they created an algorithm of "desirable elements of attractiveness" that then spits out the new you.

The beauty machine is more subtle than a typical Photoshop makeover, they say. The machine does not seem to work so well on celebrities, however.

"We've run the faces of people like Brigitte Bardot and Woody Allen through the machine and most people are very unhappy with the results," Cohen-Or said. "But in unfamiliar faces, most would agree the output is better."

(Agencies)

Vocabulary:

plastic surgeon: 整形醫師 （plastic surgery, 整形手術）

（英語點津 Helen 編輯）