For the past many years I’ve tinkered with various algorithms to take a color photograph and convert it into a line drawing. Unlike other “style transfer” or pencil effects, these are actually made up of individual strokes and can therefore be drawn with a pen plotter or similar device. Some of the more advanced versions even contain simple logic for hatching and cross-hatching in order to produce shading in a technique similar to a real human artist. Thus far, I’ve only used heuristic computer vision approaches, however I hope to one day make use of a bit of machine learning to improve the results aesthetically.

I created an interactive touchscreen application for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art that enabled museum patrons to construct their own camera-less images (photograms) in the style of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, then upload the results to social media. There were nearly a thousand finished submissions, which can be viewed in this Flickr album. Here are a few of the results:

It was very interesting trying to strike a balance between a simple and intuitive interface, while allowing enough depth for more subtle artistic expression (i.e. “low-floor, high-ceiling”). Based on how I observed people using it, it seems to have been relatively effective in this regard. Some users would create a photogram from start to finish in only 20 seconds, while other users would refine the placement of their objects for 15 minutes or more.

Here are a few screenshots of an interactive app I’m installing for an upcoming exhibition in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The show is called The Paintings of Moholy-Nagy: The Shape of Things to Come. I’m trying to create a realistic simulation of a “photogram,” or an image made by placing objects directly over light sensitive paper. Users will use a touch-screen to place and rotate the various objects before “exposing” them to create the finished photogram. The results are starting to look more convincing, although there’s still a bit of work to perfect regarding layering and the simulated perspective shifts. Everything is done in Canvas/Javascript.