Google Arts & Culture App’s New Feature: Pet Portraits

What is Google Arts & Culture App? And do you believe in Doppelgangers?

How does the idea of your pet’s doppelganger sound to you? Pretty interesting, right?

A big thanks to Google, which never fails to amaze us with its smart algorithms and features. Through the Pet Portrait feature, you can now find your pets’ lookalike from a huge library of paintings, portraits, and even old photographs.

Google Arts and Culture gained immense popularity in 2018. It rolled out a special feature that compared selfies to famous paintings, sculptures, portraits, etc. Now, Google offers similar features for your pet friends.

You can take a picture of your pet, and Google will use its smart algorithms to find the best lookalike for your pet. One thing that you must remember here is that pet portraits aren’t only for cats or dogs. This app works for many different pets, such as sheep, birds, foxes, horses, rabbits, reptiles, and even fish.

The 2018’s Art Selfie feature matched pictures with portraits. It displayed the percentage of similarity between the selfie and the matched portrait. The exact same feature is also available in Pet Portraits.

After clicking the pet’s picture, you can view their lookalikes as swipe-able images or as a slideshow. Moreover, you can also save and share your pet’s images and the famous artwork they are associated with, with your friends and family. The app will create a card for you. It will contain your pet’s image, the portrait, painting, photograph, sculpture, etc., they are matched with, and a snippet of information about that artwork.

How to Use the Google Pets Portrait Feature on the Arts & Culture App?

The first step to using the pet portraits feature is downloading the Google Arts and Culture app on your android or iOS devices.

The second step is to open the app and tap on the rainbow camera tab located at the bottom of the screens. Click the picture of your pet to see their lookalike in the paintings and photographs. If your pet is not in the mood for a photo shoot, don’t worry. You can upload your pet’s picture from your phone’s album.

After that, Google’s mind-blowing algorithm will remove the background from your pet’s image. It will match your pet’s picture by sifting through thousands of paintings, portraits, photos, etc., to find the right or ‘almost similar’ match for your pet.

Once the match is complete, you will see the results presented adjacent to your pet’s original picture. Google gives you the option to save the results as a single image. Or animate the original image and the result as a GIF.

How Accurate Are The Results?

This is an interesting question…

Without a speck of doubt, Google’s algorithms are intelligent. They pass the image through their various collections to present the result that looks the most similar.
However, the produced results are not always accurate. Neither do they show a spectacular resemblance. Let’s take an example here, a person captures a picture of his fuzzy brown cat. The Pet Portrait feature will show him the result of the brown cat.

The results will show just the passing resemblance, i.e., a cat, brown fur, and big eyes. Other than that, people do not find any other resemblance. For instance, the build, breed, or other special features.

Once the match is complete, google presents the results and the original pet’s image. You can swipe to see more similar matches to your pet. You can also tap the result to read the brief information about the artwork. Or you can view the artwork separately and zoom in to study it more closely.

Sometimes, the results shown are in no way similar to the actual picture. Many people have reported that upon using a picture of a rat or a mouse, the results display a wolf picture. If we talk about boosting self-esteem here, Google is making good efforts. But there isn’t much room to talk about the resemblance between a rat and a wolf.

Purpose of Google Arts and Culture App

The main purpose of the Google Arts and Culture App is to stir people’s interest in art. In this fast-paced digital world, art and culture have taken a backseat. There are tons of websites, blogs, and books on ancient art and history. But, let’s be honest, only a few people are interested in art. A good majority of people find art boring.

Google Arts and Culture App’s Selfie and Pet Portrait feature introduced fun and unique ways to bring people closer to famous art pieces.

Other Special Options in Google Arts and Culture App

The app also offers the following features to make things more enjoyable:

1. Pocket Galleries

This feature allows users to explore multiple paintings and galleries. The pocket gallery feature is remarkable for people who have a knack for exploring art. People can view different art, read their brief history, and zoom in to closely study details.

Another remarkable feature of this app is the Art Filter.

2. Art Filter

Pictures and selfies without filters are a rare thing now. Using filters to capture selfies and photos spruce up things and give an artistic touch to the final images.

Since people capture their selfies and pictures of their pets, this app also provides the feature of an art filter. You can try on different filters based on the museum’s artifacts.

Moving on to the next feature, which is Art Transfer:

3. Art Transfer

Making a classical portrait of yourself with expressive brush strokes can cost you a hefty fortune. But thanks to the art transfer feature of the Google Arts and Culture App, you can transform your pictures into remarkable artwork. No need to pay a dime!
Another useful feature of this app is the color palette. Let’s explore it more in the infra paragraph.

4. Color Palette

Do you have a favorite picture that you adore because of the vivid colors? You can use your photo’s color palette to explore art with a similar color scheme and palette.

Up next, we have:

5. Virtual Reality Tours

If you are an admirer of famous artworks and wish to visit world-famous museums…all you have to do is download the app.

Google Arts and Culture App offers the feature of Virtual Reality Tours. You can step inside the museum and view different paintings and artworks in the comfort of your home or a café. No need to empty your bank account for buying expensive tickets for museums.

Final Words

Google Arts and Culture App’s new feature of Pet Portraits is truly brilliant. It allows people to have fun finding the doppelgangers of their furry, scaly, feathery friends.

Its awesome features combined with the brief information of the artwork is an excellent way to pique people’s interest in popular art pieces.

The new Pet Portrait feature combined with other augmented reality options makes it an epic app for fun and education.