A Fast Algorithm for Painterly Rendering on Mobile Devices

Abstract

With the rapid growth of mobile graphics applications, non-photorealistic rendering algorithms developed particularly for devices with limited processor capabilities have become important in the areas of games design and augmented reality. This paper presents a fast painterly rendering algorithm suitable for implementation on mobile phones. Connected components in an image are identified and stored in an index buffer, using a sequential scan. Most of the subsequent processing is done only on this index buffer that contains one integer value per pixel. The proposed method does not use recursive procedures, complex floating-point computations, or texture processing functions. The painterly rendered effect is produced by suitably modifying the boundary of connected components and highlighting edges using entries from the index buffer. The paper presents the theoretical framework for the algorithm, implementation aspects and results.