Fluid Simulation as a Tool for Painterly Rendering

We follow in the tradition of stroke based non-photorealistic rendering pioneered by Haelberi [1990]. Inspired by expressionistic paintings such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night, we have begun experimenting with fluid simulation as a tool for brush stroke alignment. Using simulated fluid fields in the context of stroke based nonphotorealistic rendering allows us to produce stroke behaviors which are visually appealing, and which offer expressive potential beyond that of gradient based techniques (such as those used in [Litwinowicz 1997] and [Hertzmann 1998]).