Non-Photorealistic Computer Graphics Library

Painterly Rendered Portraits from Photographs using a Knowledge-Based Approach

Author(s): Steve DiPaola.
Proceedings: In Proc SPIE: Human Vision and Imaging, Int. Society for Optical Engineering, Bernice E. Rogowitz and Thrasyvoulos N. Pappas and Scott J. Daly, Vol. 6492, SPIE, 2007.
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Abstract:
Portrait artists using oils, acrylics or pastels use a specific but open human vision methodology to create a painterly portrait of a live sitter. When they must use a photograph as source, artists augment their process, since photographs have: different focusing - everything is in focus or focused in vertical planes; value clumping - the camera darkens the shadows and lightens the bright areas; as well as color and perspective distortion. In general, artistic methodology attempts the following: from the photograph, the painting must simplify, compose and leave out what’s irrelevant, emphasizing what’s important. While seemingly a qualitative goal, artists use known techniques such as relying on source tone over color to indirect into a semantic color temperature model, use brush and tonal "sharpness" to create a center of interest, lost and found edges to move the viewers gaze through the image towards the center of interest as well as other techniques to filter and emphasize. Our work attempts to create a knowledge domain of the portrait painter process and incorporate this knowledge into a multispace parameterized system that can create an array of NPR painterly rendering output by analyzing the photographic-based input which informs the semantic knowledge rules.