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Artificial mosaics

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Abstract

Art often provides valuable insight that can be applied to technological innovations, especially in the fields of image processing and computer graphics. In this paper we present a method to transform a raster input image into a good-quality mosaic: an “artificial mosaic.” The creation of mosaics of artistic quality is challenging because the tiles that compose a mosaic, typically small polygons, must be packed tightly and yet must follow and emphasize orientations chosen by the artist. The proposed method can reproduce the colors of the original image and emphasize relevant boundaries by placing tiles along edge directions. No user intervention is needed to detect the boundaries: they are automatically detected using a simple but effective image processing technique. Several examples reported in the paper show how the right mixture of mathematical tools together with time-tested ideas of mosaicists may lead to impressive results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. D.M.I., University of Catania, Viale A. Doria, 6, 95125, Catania, Italy

    Gianpiero Di Blasi & Giovanni Gallo

Authors
  1. Gianpiero Di Blasi
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  2. Giovanni Gallo
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Correspondence to Gianpiero Di Blasi.

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Di Blasi, G., Gallo, G. Artificial mosaics. Visual Comput 21, 373–383 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-005-0292-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-005-0292-4

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