Princeton University
Computer Science Dept.

Computer Science 597B

Advanced Topics in CS:
Non-Photorealistic Rendering

Adam Finkelstein and Lee Markosian

Fall 2000

Summary

The traditional "holy grail" of computer graphics has been photorealism -- the notion that the ideal computer graphics imagery would be visually indistinguishable from a photograph. But realistic modeling of humans, animals, and natural scenery is extremely difficult, and there is good reason to believe that it will always be so -- realism demands lots of details that all have to be specified correctly (in a "photorealistic" sense).

In contrast, hand-drawn images can depict natural scenes with a huge range of styles, often evoking complexity while retaining an underlying simplicity. Through abstraction and careful elision of detail, hand-drawn imagery can focus the viewer's attention on important information while downplaying extraneous or unimportant features. An artistic scene can also suggest additional semantic information, such as a specific mood (eg, whimsical or dreary), or a quality of "unfinishedness" that may be desirable, for example, in an architect's rough sketch of a new building. Can the same principles apply to computer graphics? Of course, although how to fully realize this goal remains an open research question. Research in this area has been dubbed "non-photorealistic rendering" (NPR).

The goal of this seminar is to cover research to date in NPR, and to give students the opportunity to explore beyond the cutting edge. To this end, seminar will have two components -- papers and projects. These are described in more detail in the:

Syllabus

Links

Students in the seminar.

Local online copies organized by topic are here.

For an excellent overview of NPR resources on the web, have a look at Craig Reynold's page on the subject.

Here is a list of recent NPR papers cached at University of Utah.

Here is a nice online museum organized by Nicolas Pioch.

Administrative Information

This course is open to all students (grad and undergrad) who have taken computer graphics (COS 426 or equivalent), or by permission.

Meeting: Mon 7:00pm-9:20pm, Room: 302

Instructors:
     Adam Finkelstein - 424 CS Building - 258-5756 af@cs.princeton.edu
     Lee Markosian - 212 CS Building - 258-5551 lem@cs.princeton.edu