Real-time video abstraction

  • Authors:
  • Holger Winnemöller;Sven C. Olsen;Bruce Gooch

  • Affiliations:
  • Northwestern University;Northwestern University;Northwestern University

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Papers
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We present an automatic, real-time video and image abstraction framework that abstracts imagery by modifying the contrast of visually important features, namely luminance and color opponency. We reduce contrast in low-contrast regions using an approximation to anisotropic diffusion, and artificially increase contrast in higher contrast regions with difference-of-Gaussian edges. The abstraction step is extensible and allows for artistic or data-driven control. Abstracted images can optionally be stylized using soft color quantization to create cartoon-like effects with good temporal coherence. Our framework design is highly parallel, allowing for a GPU-based, real-time implementation. We evaluate the effectiveness of our abstraction framework with a user-study and find that participants are faster at naming abstracted faces of known persons compared to photographs. Participants are also better at remembering abstracted images of arbitrary scenes in a memory task.