Analytical Evaluation of Midjourney Architectural Virtual Lab: Defining Major Current Limits in AI-Generated Representations of Islamic Architectural Heritage

Abstract

In artificial intelligence (AI), generative systems, most notably Midjourney, have tremendous power to generate creative images of buildings and sites of Islamic architectural heritage through text-to-image generation based on the internet. The AI-generated representations have significant potential for architects, specialists, and everyday users. However, the system has considerable limitations when generating images for some buildings and sites where the representations appear too far from their original represented structures. Evaluating Midjourney as an architectural virtual lab, this research article attempts to define the major current limitations of using Midjourney’s AI system in producing images similar to the actual buildings and sites of Islamic architectural heritage. This research employs prompt engineering techniques based on historical sources as inputs to examine the accuracy of the output of the AI-generated images of selected examples of structures of the Islamic tradition. To validate the research results, it compares the Midjourney output with the original look by employing direct observation through critical analysis of human intelligence (HI) facilitated by the analysis of the latest version of 3M Visual Attention Software and an online survey. It concludes that while Midjourney can represent high-end AI-generated images inspired by the Islamic tradition, it currently falls short of presenting the actual appearance of some of its original structures. Furthermore, it categorizes these limitations into four groups: (1) limits of the prompt, (2) limits of fame, (3) limits of regionality and historical styles, and (4) limits of architectural elements and details. The significance of this research lies in providing timely evaluation factors to architectural heritage practitioners and software developers. This practical article is the second in a series of two sequential articles in the Buildings journal; the first (theoretical) article introduces the concept of Artificial Intelligence Islamic Architecture (AIIA), answering the question: what is Islamic architecture in the age of artificial intelligence?