Stroke-based Rendering and Planning for Robotic Performance of Artistic Drawing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a stroke-based rendering system for robotic drawing that emphasizes artistic quality by mimicking human-like stroke planning and execution, resulting in visually pleasing artistic images.

Contribution

The system combines image segmentation and depth estimation to generate stroke sequences that enhance artistic perception and mimic human drawing planning.

Findings

Generated drawings are visually pleasing and artistic.

Robotic execution closely replicates the planned stroke sequence.

Stroke ordering improves the perception of shape and detail.

Abstract

We present a new robotic drawing system based on stroke-based rendering (SBR). Our motivation is the artistic quality of the whole performance. Not only should the generated strokes in the final drawing resemble the input image, but the stroke sequence should also exhibit a human artist's planning process. Thus, when a robot executes the drawing task, both the drawing results and the way the robot executes would look artistic. Our SBR system is based on image segmentation and depth estimation. It generates the drawing strokes in an order that allows for the intended shape to be perceived quickly and for its detailed features to be filled in and emerge gradually when observed by the human. This ordering represents a stroke plan that the drawing robot should follow to create an artistic rendering of images. We experimentally demonstrate that our SBR-based drawing makes visually pleasing artistic images, and our robotic system can replicate the result with proper sequences of stroke drawing.