Non-Photorealistic Computer Graphics Library

A Survey of Stroke-Based Rendering

Author(s): Aaron Hertzmann.
Article: IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 70--81, July/August, 2003.
[BibTeX] [DOI]

Abstract:
This tutorial describes stroke-based rendering (SBR), an automatic approach to creating nonphotorealistic imagery by placing discrete elements such as paint strokes or stipples. Researchers have proposed many SBR algorithms and styles such as painting, pen-and-ink drawing, tile mosaics, stippling, streamline visualization, and tensor field visualization. This tutorial attempts to make sense of the disparate work in this area by creating a unified view of SBR algorithms, which helps us identify the common elements and the unique ideas of each approach. Moreover, presenting ideas in this fashion suggests possibilities for future research. Figure 1 shows an SBR algorithm in action. Starting from a photograph, a collection of brush strokes are placed in a manner that matches the original photograph, and then rendered to have the appearance of an oil painting.