Image and Video Abstraction by Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering

Abstract

We present a non-photorealistic rendering technique to transform color images and videos into painterly abstractions. It is based on a generalization of the Kuwahara filter that is adapted to the local shape of features, derived from the smoothed structure tensor. Contrary to conventional edge-preserving filters, our filter generates a painting-like flattening effect along the local feature directions while preserving shape boundaries. As opposed to conventional painting algorithms, it produces temporally coherent video abstraction without extra processing. The GPU implementation of our method processes video in real-time. The results have the clearness of cartoon illustrations but also exhibit directional information as found in oil paintings.

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Images

Comparisons with other popular techniques.

Videos

Video 1

Citation

Kyprianidis, J. E. Kang, H., & Döllner, J. (2009). Image and Video Abstraction by Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering. Computer Graphics Forum, 28(7), pp. 1955-1963. (Special issue on Pacific Graphics 2009)

@ARTICLE{ Kyprianidis:2011:AKF,
  author  = { Kyprianidis, Jan Eric and Kang, Henry and D{\"o}llner, J{\"u}rgen },
  title   = { Image and Video Abstraction by Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering },
  journal = { Computer Graphics Forum },
  number  = { 7 },
  volume  = { 28 },
  pages   = { 1955--1963 },
  year    = { 2009 },
  doi     = { 10.1111/j.1467-8659.2009.01574.x },
  note    = { Special issue on Pacific Graphics 2009 }
}

Related

• Kyprianidis, J. E. (2011). Image and Video Abstraction by Multi-scale Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering. In: Proc. 9th Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering (NPAR).
• Kyprianidis, J. E., Semmo, A., Kang, H., & Döllner, J. (2010). Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering with Polynomial Weighting Functions. In: Proc. EG UK Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics, pp. 25–30.
• Kyprianidis, J. E., Kang, H., & Döllner, J. (2010). Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering on the GPU. In W. Engel (Ed.), GPU Pro - Advanced Rendering Techniques. AK Peters, pp. 247–264.
• Kyprianidis, J. E., Kang, H., & Döllner, J. (2009). Image and Video Abstraction by Anisotropic Kuwahara Filtering. Poster at 7th Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering (NPAR).