https://github.com/danmacnish/cartoonify

Python
python app to turn a photograph into a cartoon

Draw This.

Draw This is a polaroid camera that draws cartoons. You point, and shoot - and out pops a cartoon; the camera's best interpretation of what it saw. The camera is a mash up of a neural network for object recognition, the google quickdraw dataset, a thermal printer, and a raspberry pi.

The software can run both on a desktop environment (OSX, Linux) such as a laptop, or an embedded environment on a raspberry pi.

Desktop installation (only tested on OSX and linux)

• Requirements:
  • Python 2.7
• install dependencies using pip install -r requirements.txt from the cartoonify subdirectory.
• install app using pip install . from within the cartoonify directory
• run app from command line using cartoonify
• you will be asked if you want to download the cartoon dataset and tensorflow model. Select yes.
• close the app using cntrl-C once the downloads have finished.
• start the app again using cartoonify --gui

Raspberry pi wiring

The following wiring diagram will get you started with a shutter button and a status LED. If the software is working correctly, the status LED should light up for 2-3 seconds when the shutter is pressed while the raspi is processing an image. If the light stays on, something has gone wrong (most likely the camera is unplugged).

Raspberry pi installation

• requirements:

  • raspberry pi 3
  • rasbian stretch image on 16gb SD card (8gb too small)
  • internet access on the raspi
  • pip + python
  • raspi camera v2
  • a button, led, 220 ohm resistor and breadboard
  • (optional) Thermal printer to suit a raspi 3. I used this printer here. Note you will need to use the printer TTL serial interface as per the wiring diagram above, rather than USB.

• install docker on the raspi by running: curl -sSL https://get.docker.com | sh

• set up and enable the raspi camera through raspi-config

• clone the source code from this repo

• run ./raspi-build.sh. This will download the google quickdraw dataset and tensorflow model, then build the required docker image.

• run ./raspi-run.sh. This will start the docker image.

Troubleshooting

• Check the log files in the cartoonify/logs folder for any error messages.
• The most common issue when running on a raspi is not having the camera plugged in correctly.
• If nothing is printing, check the logs then check whether images are being saved to cartoonify/images.
• Check that you can manually print something from the thermal printer from the command line.