Non-photorealistic computer graphics is a multidisciplinary field in the research community, involving computer arts, computer graphics, computer vision, digital image/video processing and visual cognitive psychology. It aims at the computer generation of images and animations that are made in part “by hand” in appearance, and are characterized by their use of randomness, abstraction, ambiguity, or arbitrariness rather than completeness and adherence to the portrayed objects’ properties. In essence, it mimics the eyes and minds of artists and designers to create, view and depict the graphics world, effectively carrying-out the visual communication between computers and human beings.

"The Algorithms and Principles of Non-photorealistic Graphics: Artistic Rendering and Cartoon Animation" provides a conceptual framework for and comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of research on non-photorealistic computer graphics including methodologies, algorithms and software tools dedicated to generating artistic and meaningful images and animations. This book mainly discusses how to create art from a blank canvas, how to convert the source images into pictures with the desired visual effects, how to generate artistic renditions from 3D models, how to synthesize expressive pictures from textual, graphical and pictorial data, and how to speed up the production of cartoon animation sequences with temporal coherence. It is intended for researchers and graduate students in the fields of computer graphics, digital media arts, and cartoon animation.

Dr. Weidong Geng is a professor at the Department of Digital Media Technology and State Key Laboratory of Computer Aided Design and Computer Graphics, Zhejiang University, China.