.
A Novel Technique for Opus Vermiculatum Mosaic Rendering
S. Battiato, G. Di Blasi, G.M. Farinella, G. Gallo.
14th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision (WSCG'06), pp. 133--140, January,
2006. [BibTeX]
Fast Techniques for Mosaic Rendering
G. Gallo, G. Di Blasi, M. Petralia.
EuroGraphics Workshop on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging (CA'05), pp. 29--39, Girona, Spain, 18-20 May,
2005. [BibTeX]
Fast Techniques for Non Photorealistic Rendering
Author(s): G. Di Blasi.
PhD Thesis: University of Catania, Italy,
2006.
[BibTeX] 
Abstract:
This thesis investigates the problem of producing nonphotorealistic digital images especially for aesthetic purposes; this research field has not an "official" name yet within the larger realm of Computer Science, some people call it Artistic Rendering (AR), [Col04], some others, Computational Aesthetics (CA), [Com06], someone else NonPhotorealistic Rendering (NPR). In this thesis I prefer the term "Computational Aesthetics" because I think that this term better explains the "essence", the purpose and the aim of this field: to reproduce the aesthetic essence of human arts by mean of computational tools. Specifically, I address the problem of mosaics rendering, proposing novel algorithms for fast mosaics creation starting from real images. In this thesis I present several methods (together with many improvements) to transform a raster input image into good quality mosaics: artificial (or ancient) mosaics, photomosaics and puzzle image mosaics. The main goal of all methods is to produce good results in an acceptable time and without (or with a minimal) user intervention. Examples reported in this thesis show how the right mixture of mathematical and computational tools may lead to impressive aesthetic results.