Picture Composition for a Robot Photographer

Abstract

We explain how to use simple composition rules to drive an automated, mobile photography system. The composition rules are used to determine both the location for a good photograph, and how to frame that photograph. We describe the composition component in the context of a larger application, a robotic photographer. The robot moves around an area with people in it, opportunistically looking for faces and taking photographs. We describe both how to find faces in the world and how to create “good” photographs of those faces.