New implant imitates bone structure

[kavan]

I heard the CIA had come close to (or have come close to, or already developed) some kind of technology that morphs a person's facial features, like does something that makes your facial features malleable and changeable into a completely different face.  I have no idea what that technology is or how it works but I remember reading about this.

Well, they have the program where you can mark out a bunch of points on the face and morph in accordance to certain distance relationships being totally changed or that can be used for facial descriptions people have that forensics draw on the basis of a description. So, they can keep changing things around so the person describing someone can see if the changes match what they saw when there is no actual photo but just a description . They also have prosthetic department that makes fake but life like faces one can wear. As to surgeries, they have a cadre of specialists to perform and consult with as to desired changes (if possible), for example to make a body double look or just change an 'outed' agent into another face.  They usually like faces that just blend in with the crowd. Outstanding features as to beauty/handsome could be done but the person who gets that would get it to attract and extract info. Mata Hari or male mata hari deal.

[PloskoPlus]

when do you think genetic engineering will be able to help us plosko?

I don't. It will help our descendants.

[ben from UK]

I heard the CIA had come close to (or have come close to, or already developed) some kind of technology that morphs a person's facial features, like does something that makes your facial features malleable and changeable into a completely different face.  I have no idea what that technology is or how it works but I remember reading about this.

It's simply impossible for a surgeon to calculate the right dimensions for an implant based on the skull alone, that's why there is need for these kind of programs. The design may look great on paper, and it looks fantastic to see the sharp edges at the jaw angles, but in reality, if you don't have a very retruded jaw and chin, more than 3 millimeter width could already give unnatural results and make the face look bloated, too broad, or give a U-shape. This is one of the reasons for the high revision rate. Creating a model look is probably a myth. Implants don't give those extreme angular angles. Until someone figures out why that's the case, no progressie will be made. I personally think most designs are wrong. For example, you only need a small border along the lower jaw to make it angular, but most designs go high up on the face, especially at the masseter area. The reason is that they need to be fixed, but that whole part is totally useless aestethically. Every millimeter of implant that isn't needed on a particular place can throw off the balance of facial harmony. Facial beauty is about small millimeters. Most surgeons go way overboard as well, but it's not even their fault, they aren't able to calculate the dimensions based on the skull alone. Also, clients come to their office and ask for a 'model face' or 'Brad pit jawline'. Crazy questions. Most men that aren't aware of reality think 'the more width, the better'. I see crazy implant designs with 10mm width and stuff like that on normal faces. I wonder how they turn out, it wouldn't surprise me if almost all of these cases fail. It looks great on Photoshop, but Photoshop preserves the V-line, shadows and ogee line. Photoshop is not implants. If surgeons would be able to create jawlines like the ones on Photoshop, you could safely put an implant in. But most surgeons can't do it. Until someone figures out why, implants are high risk. Then you have alternatives like bonework. Super unpredictable. Alot of clients report asymmetry problems, longfaces, blunted jawangles, etc. The risks are very high with PS and reducing the risks of undesirable outcomes would be a big step forward.

[PloskoPlus]

My friend works in a videogame company.  For their games they make 3D models from photos, videos of real people.  They do it "from the ground up".  Estimate what the skull looks like and model that first.  Then throw layers of "virtual plasticine" on top to get to the final 3D model.  Kind of like the Gerasimov method, but they already know what the result should look like, and they guesstimate the skull instead.  Anyway, he told me how the head artist would review the work - "no, no, no, looks nothing like him!", rips off the skin and muscle, tweaks the jaw bone a few mms, adds back the soft-tissue layers and the new face looks completely different.  A few mms.

[Lazlo]

My friend works in a videogame company.  For their games they make 3D models from photos, videos of real people.  They do it "from the ground up".  Estimate what the skull looks like and model that first.  Then throw layers of "virtual plasticine" on top to get to the final 3D model.  Kind of like the Gerasimov method, but they already know what the result should look like, and they guesstimate the skull instead.  Anyway, he told me how the head artist would review the work - "no, no, no, looks nothing like him!", rips off the skin and muscle, tweaks the jaw bone a few mms, adds back the soft-tissue layers and the new face looks completely different.  A few mms.

That's awesome. That's the type of facial planning we need in plastic surgery. It's actually astounding it doesn't already exist for plastic surgeons given surgery you would think is a priority over gaming. (don't jump on me, i know, i know, it's actually not).

[GJ]

A few mms.

Sums it up, and is so sad.

[jusken]

That's awesome. That's the type of facial planning we need in plastic surgery. It's actually astounding it doesn't already exist for plastic surgeons given surgery you would think is a priority over gaming. (don't jump on me, i know, i know, it's actually not).

I know I'm going to sound like a jerk, but Plosko's interpretation of how game character models are made is fairly different from reality.  The 'building from the ground up' notion can only really refer to training exercises currently - example: some artists will build a character from skeleton -> musculature -> soft tissue as an exercise to better understand anatomy (in fact, artists have been doing this for hundreds of years in different ways).  In a work environment, this would be a phenomenal waste of resources.  In short, games don't do any real bone, muscle, soft tissue simulation.  We still use 'paper envelope' models with joints (connected points/nodes with vertex weighting) and corrective blend shapes for animating a face or body.  Fundamentally, nothing has changed other than the distribution/number/tech built on top of this for decades.

The only way this will change is with AI (which is very much a loaded buzzword at this point).  But the roadmap for this is just under way.  Nvidia's new RTX cards have just started including tensor cores (which are just specialized matrices for AI driven tasks). In other words, if you want to actually simulate human tissues for surgical planning, we have a ways to go.

[ben from UK]

That's awesome. That's the type of facial planning we need in plastic surgery. It's actually astounding it doesn't already exist for plastic surgeons given surgery you would think is a priority over gaming. (don't jump on me, i know, i know, it's actually not).

I once saw on a PS site that they used this kind of software, I don't know which site it was. Surgeons can't predict how much augmentation is needed. Some faces need a tiny bit of augmentation. During surgery, they can shave part of the implants but the ideal is an implant that fits perfectly. A perfect implant probably doesn't exist though. You're born with the right bonestructure of you're not.

[PloskoPlus]

I know I'm going to sound like a jerk, but Plosko's interpretation of how game character models are made is fairly different from reality.  The 'building from the ground up' notion can only really refer to training exercises currently - example: some artists will build a character from skeleton -> musculature -> soft tissue as an exercise to better understand anatomy (in fact, artists have been doing this for hundreds of years in different ways).  In a work environment, this would be a phenomenal waste of resources.  In short, games don't do any real bone, muscle, soft tissue simulation.  We still use 'paper envelope' models with joints (connected points/nodes with vertex weighting) and corrective blend shapes for animating a face or body.  Fundamentally, nothing has changed other than the distribution/number/tech built on top of this for decades.

The only way this will change is with AI (which is very much a loaded buzzword at this point).  But the roadmap for this is just under way.  Nvidia's new RTX cards have just started including tensor cores (which are just specialized matrices for AI driven tasks). In other words, if you want to actually simulate human tissues for surgical planning, we have a ways to go.

I don't mind being corrected. This was a few years ago and my friend is not a 3d artist. Anyway, that company is loaded with cash and the faces had to look like some athletes. Truth be told the biomedical industry that I've dealt with is pretty retrograde. I  wouldn't hold my breath waiting for breakthroughs.

[Lazlo]

I know I'm going to sound like a jerk, but Plosko's interpretation of how game character models are made is fairly different from reality.  The 'building from the ground up' notion can only really refer to training exercises currently - example: some artists will build a character from skeleton -> musculature -> soft tissue as an exercise to better understand anatomy (in fact, artists have been doing this for hundreds of years in different ways).  In a work environment, this would be a phenomenal waste of resources.  In short, games don't do any real bone, muscle, soft tissue simulation.  We still use 'paper envelope' models with joints (connected points/nodes with vertex weighting) and corrective blend shapes for animating a face or body.  Fundamentally, nothing has changed other than the distribution/number/tech built on top of this for decades.

The only way this will change is with AI (which is very much a loaded buzzword at this point).  But the roadmap for this is just under way.  Nvidia's new RTX cards have just started including tensor cores (which are just specialized matrices for AI driven tasks). In other words, if you want to actually simulate human tissues for surgical planning, we have a ways to go.

I'm enjoying all of your contributions to this thread and the tech. predictions/speculations.

But I think we can be more optimistic frankly. I say that because if you think of just jaw surgery, when I started looking into it this site just started and now there is literally thousands of before and afters and information about jaw surgery. Okay, maybe that wasn't a good example cause its ben over several years and basically nothing in the way jaw surgery has been done has changed lol.

I remember a doc telling me they were looking for the perfect lasers to do the osteotomies so that the soft tissue would be undisturbed and it would avoid all nerve damage. That was literally 9-10 years ago and no one has even heard of lasers being used in jaw surgery (and no he didn't mean piezosurgery which most surgeons hate using cause its very inaccurate). So they really f**king failed on that front.

I don't know anything about artificial intelligence but won't these tasks be streamlined with quantum computing and s**t?

Also, having good looks is VERY youth dependent, so that's one factor most of us veterans on this site have f**king lost. I mean that 18-25 year old extreme youth=beauty occasion. Plus 35 is over the hill and your looks are kind of irrelevant at that point.

And then with regards to jaw surgery ---yeah unless you're perfect from every other point of view it doesn't matter.

I thought jaw surgery was something that would create a profound effect. But looking at a very good looking young waiter at a restaurant today I realize that "being good looking" has so many different criteria coming into play together from hair texture to broadness of cheekbones (super important) to the precise ration of your nose to the rest of your face. You just can't artifically jig that stuff through surgery. You just can't cause it's an entire gestalt.

Sucks, but that's kind of the sad truth. And any kind of gene editing blah blah, that's not like 50, that's a hundred years away and the earth will probably be uninhabitable by then. So who f**king cares. Like seriously, f**k this s**t in toto.

[jusken]

I don't mind being corrected. This was a few years ago and my friend is not a 3d artist. Anyway, that company is loaded with cash and the faces had to look like some athletes. Truth be told the biomedical industry that I've dealt with is pretty retrograde. I  wouldn't hold my breath waiting for breakthroughs.

Sure yeah, there are lots of projects out there and some projects are fairly unique. I was just trying to lay out the current state-of-the-art even in AAA projects.  Since games have so much they are trying to do, they are rarely going to push the tech boundaries that would benefit other industries.  The only exception I can think of is with AI learning to play games (OpenAI and others) - machine learning is a great test bed in games since there is far less noise and the logic is very abstracted.

I can imagine lots of biomed companies are still very retrograde as you say.  My hope is that the most cutting edge tech can converge into something that will benefit many industries.  As an outsider to biotech, I myself probably get wrapped up in all sorts of sensationalism.  But recently, my favorite few talks have been from Michael Levin, who has done a ton of work trying to understand regeneration in different organisms.  Obviously I'm not holding my breath, but I do believe that biotech and AI research will one day converge into something that will hopefully make massive breakthroughs to improve people's lives.

Anyway, I'm really getting off the original topic here...

[Lazlo]

Will plastic surgery really be different though in 5-10 years?

I don't think so. More predictions with regards to fillers and s**t like that. These surgeons love fillers because they want patients to keep coming back on a subscription service to keep getting s**t done. If there were permanent fixes they wouldn't even want them. Fillers satisfies the idiot masses and docs love them. Even dentists do fillers on people now.

Honestly, f**k this industry. I hate to resort to the type of talk of these lookism types but I became aware of the term "cope or rope" a little while back and honestly, I think it f**king suffices.

For some people, and I guess this especially includes people with body dysmorphia the "rope" option is tempting and the rest of us are just coping by continously visiting this site.

Jaw surgery did nothing for my looks, and that's the reason I got it. So f**k all this s**t.

You can't buy model looks. You just can't.

[kavan]

Will plastic surgery really be different though in 5-10 years?

I don't think so. More predictions with regards to fillers and s**t like that. These surgeons love fillers because they want patients to keep coming back on a subscription service to keep getting s**t done. If there were permanent fixes they wouldn't even want them. Fillers satisfies the idiot masses and docs love them. Even dentists do fillers on people now.

Honestly, f**k this industry. I hate to resort to the type of talk of these lookism types but I became aware of the term "cope or rope" a little while back and honestly, I think it f**king suffices.

For some people, and I guess this especially includes people with body dysmorphia the "rope" option is tempting and the rest of us are just coping by continously visiting this site.

Jaw surgery did nothing for my looks, and that's the reason I got it. So f**k all this s**t.

You can't buy model looks. You just can't.

That would explain why one can see enough rich people with nipped, tucked, sucked and f**ked over faces.

[PloskoPlus]

All I wanted out of my surgery was normal tooth show and I didn't even get that simple thing.

[Lazlo]

That would explain why one can see enough rich people with nipped, tucked, sucked and f**ked over faces.

Dude, you don't even know. I'm in Miami right now visiting some family and have been here for a few weeks.

There are some ridiculously good looking girls and guys here --but they're all of spanish/cuban heritage and of course I'm just noticing the occasional good looking person.

There are tons of white people here too and they f**king HORDES of old people 50 plus. MANY, MANY probably HALF have noticeable plastic surgery and they look like complete f**king JUNKBOTS.

f**ked up long midfaces with the skin pulled tight, obviously died hair and/or hair implants. Pinched noses and wonky looking eyes. And plastic surgery seems like a major industry here. There are billboards with huge photos of asshole surgeons advertizing their plastic surgery expertise. Those are clearly the guys f**king people over so they can live in those modernist homes overlooking the ocean with the yachts parked out front.

It's like if these women and men hadn't gotten plastic surgery they would look 10X times better. And most of them you can tell have had several procedures. We're just deluding ourselves here as well. We're clearly "coping".