StegoNPR: Information Hiding in Painterly Renderings

Abstract

We present a novel steganographic technique for concealing information within an image. Uniquely we explore the practicality of hiding, and recovering, data within the pattern of brush strokes generated by a non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) algorithm. We incorporate a linear binary coding (LBC) error correction scheme over a raw data channel established through the local statistics of NPR stroke orientations. This enables us to deliver a robust channel for conveying short (e.g. 30 character) strings covertly within a painterly rendering. We evaluate over a variety of painterly renderings, parameter settings and message lengths.