Stylized Augmented Reality for Improved Immersion
Author(s): Jan Fischer, Dirk Bartz, Wolfgang Straßer.
Proceedings: IEEE Virtual Reality, pp. 195--202, Bonn, Mar 12-16th,
2005.
[BibTeX] 
Abstract:
The ultimate goal of augmented reality is to provide the user with
a view of the surroundings enriched by virtual objects. Practically
all augmented reality systems rely on standard real-time rendering
methods for generating the images of virtual scene elements. Although
such conventional computer graphics algorithms are fast,
they often fail to produce sufficiently realistic renderings. The use
of simple lighting and shading methods, as well as the lack of
knowledge about actual lighting conditions in the real surroundings,
cause virtual objects to appear artificial.
In this paper, we propose an entirely novel approach for generating
augmented reality images in video see-through systems. Our
method is based on the idea of applying stylization techniques for
reducing the visual realism of both the camera image and the virtual
graphical objects. A special painterly image filter is applied to
the camera video stream. The virtual scene elements are generated
using a non-photorealistic rendering method. Since both the camera
image and the virtual objects are stylized in a corresponding
“cartoon-like” or “sketch-like” way, they appear very similar. As
a result, the graphical objects seem to be an actual part of the real
surroundings.
We describe both the new painterly filter for the camera image
and the non-photorealistic rendering method for virtual scene elements,
which has been adapted for this purpose. Both are fast
enough for generating augmented reality images in real-time and are highly customizable. The results obtained using our method are
very promising and show that it improves immersion in augmented
reality.