Tangent-Based Binary Image Abstraction

Yi-Ta Wu, Jeng-Sheng Yeh, Fu-Che Wu, Yung-Yu Chuang
2017 Journal of Imaging  
We present a tangent flow-based image abstraction framework that turns a color or grayscale image into a two-tone image, which contains only black and white color, but retains sufficient information such that the viewer can still recognize the main content of the original image by observing the output of a two-tone image. Usually, the relevant visual information is presented by the edge. Thus, the algorithm will enhance the edge content first by the tangent flow to preserve its detail. We use
more » ... lters to smooth the input image to reduce the contrast in low contrast regions and enhance some important features. Then we turn the image into a two-tone image as output. We can reduce the size of the image significantly but retain sufficient information to capture the main point of the image through our method. At the end of our process, we provide a smoothing step to smooth the two-tone image. Through this step, we can get an artistic black-and-white image. Abstraction is considered a technique for effective visual communication that attracts the viewer's attention to the most meaningful parts and allows the viewer to understand the primary purpose without much effort. This skill is widely used in art and design. Abstracting an image often involves reducing the information of content. If it is the main point that we want to present, then it will be preserved, and other less essential components will be concealed. Thus, clarifying the significant structures in an image is an important task for image abstraction. Decarlo and Santella [2] proposed a computational approach to stylizing and abstracting photographs. They used a model of human perception and recorded users' eye movements to identify the significant elements in a picture. Winnemöller et al. [3] presented an automatic, real-time abstraction framework that abstracted images by modifying the contrast of visually important features. They also provided a flexible quantization method on the abstracted images, which resulted in a cartoon or paint-like effects and became another artistic illustration style. Kyprianidis and Döllner [4] presented a framework, which used oriented filters, creating simplified stylistic illustrations automatically. Such works aim at providing a system that creates colorful abstractions and gets pretty good results (see Figure 1 ). Now we further want to present a framework that abstracts images using the minimal colors, just in black and white.
doi:10.3390/jimaging3020016 fatcat:nokcw7diyvfi3l457deu5yyyqe