Google's Arts and Culture app now has a new feature: you can search through thousands upon thousands of paintings to find an exact match for your pet. Google's "Pet Portraits” feature allows you to take a photo of your pet, including a cat, dog, fish, reptile or horse. The machine learning algorithm will then find similar pieces of art. It takes only a few seconds and you can tap on the artwork to find out more. You can also save a slideshow of your results.
Pet Portraits was tested on Aslan my cat. The results were mixed. While the app could generate a gorgeous (ok, mostly tan!) color palette based upon his fur, the majority of the art doppelgangers (as Google calls them) didn't look much like him.
They most just look like cats to me... pic.twitter.com/7vflcuCly9 -- Mitchell (@strawberrywell) November 9, 2021
It also failed to recognize my boy's most obvious look-alike (though I do believe Google doesn't know my cat's name).
You can also upload photos to the tool instead of using the live cam. This is great news for pet owners who are a bit shy or want to try different angles. It's also possible to share the tool with coworkers pets. Perhaps you can use the results to laugh at their fourth puppy tweet.
Although I wasn't able to get the best results, it was still fun to experiment with. You can also apply famous artists' styles to your photos if you are like me.
You can also download the Google Arts and Culture App on the App Store and the Play Store to test it with your pet. You can also compare your own portrait to the app's portraits. If the stars align, the features can be used together to create artwork that looks like you and your pet.
