Artistic thresholding

Abstract

We consider the problem of depicting continuous-tone images using only black and white. Traditional solutions to this problem include halftoning, which approximates tones, and line drawing, which approximates edges. We introduce "artistic thresholding" as a technique that attempts to depict forms in an image. We apply segmentation to a source image and construct a planar subdivision that captures segment connectivity. Our artistic thresholding algorithm is a combinatorial optimization over this graph. The optimization is controlled by parameters that can be tuned to achieve different artistic styles.