Writing My Own Line Drawing Software as an Artist

Abstract

I describe trying to improve my own art—line art, specifically—by developing computer science-based tools. The results of this experience are three technical contributions targeted at an NPR (Non-Photorealistic Rendering) research audience. The first is a formal definition of hatching, a traditional drawing technique. The second is the "hatching shape," a software primitive for rapidly performing hatching. The third is the invented problem of "mashing up" two drawings, along with an algorithm for solving this problem. In addition to these technical contributions, I relate how researching NPR changed me as an artist.