Stylization and abstraction of photographs

Good information design depends on clarifying the meaningful structure in an image. We describe a computational approach to stylizing and abstracting photographs that explicitly responds to this design goal. Our system transforms images into a line-drawing style using bold edges and large regions of constant color. To do this, it represents images as a hierarchical structure of parts and boundaries computed using state-of-the-art computer vision. Our system identifies the meaningful elements of this structure using a model of human perception and a record of a user's eye movements in looking at the photo; the system renders a new image using transformations that preserve and highlight these visual elements. Our method thus represents a new alternative for non-photorealistic rendering both in its visual style, in its approach to visual form, and in its techniques for interaction.