Exploiting artistic cues to obtain line labels for free-hand sketches

Artistic cues help designers to communicate design intent in sketches. In this paper, we show how these artistic cues may be used to obtain a line labelling interpretation of freehand sketches, using a cue-based genetic algorithm to obtain a labelling solution that matches design intent. In the paper, we show how this can be achieved from off-line or paper based sketches, thereby allowing designers greater flexibility in the choice of sketching medium.peer-reviewe

A circle-based vectorization algorithm for drawings with shadows

This work is funded by the University of Malta, under the research grant SCERP02-03.Vectorization algorithms described in the literature assume that the drawings being vectorized are either binary images or have a clear white background. Sketches of artistic objects however also contain shadows which help the artist to portray intent, particularly in potentially ambiguous sketches. Such sketches are difficult to binarise since the shading strokes make these sketches non bimodal. For this reason, we describe a circle-based vectorization algorithm that uses signatures obtained from sample points on the line strokes to identify and vectorize the line strokes in the sketch. We show that the proposed algorithm performs as well as other vectorization techniques described in the literature, despite the shadows present in the sketch.peer-reviewe