Nvidia's new AI magic turns 2D photos into 3D scenes in milliseconds

This year's GTC conference was no exception, as it was renowned for mixing technical bravado with splashes of showmanship.

The company introduced a new enterprise graphics card and an Arm-based chip with a flashy demo.

75 years after the world's first instant photo captured the 3D world in a 2D picture, Nvidia showcased the inverse: turning 2D images into a 3D scene within milliseconds.

The technique involves training a neural rendering model on a few dozen still photos, with data on the camera angle for each shot. Predicting how light would behave in the real world fills in the blanks.

David Luebke said that instant NeRF could be as important to 3D as digital cameras and JPEG compression have been to 2D photography.

Andy Warhol is a Polaroid icon.

The computing giant recreated a fabled photo of the pop artist. The image was turned into a scene.

Virtual worlds, video conferences in 3D, and reconstruction of scenes for 3D maps are what Instant NeRF could do.