Apple patent involves artistic style application in iMovie, Final Cut Pro X, Clips

Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,147,459) for “artistic style transfer for videos. It involves methods to easily apply different styles to videos crafted in its iMovie (macOS and iOS), Final Cut Pro X (macOS), and Clips (iOS) apps.

The patent involves ways to apply an artistic style extracted from one or more source images, such as paintings) to one or more target images. Two or more stylized target images may be combined and stored as a stylized video sequence. 

The artistic style may be applied to the target images in the stylized video sequence using various optimization methods in a way “that prevents excessive content pixel fluctuations between images and preserves smoothness in the assembled stylized video sequence.”

Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.