Planar Shape Enhancement and Exaggeration

A local smoothing operator applied in the reverse direction is used to obtain planar shape enhancement and exaggeration. Inversion of a smoothing operator is an inherently unstable operation. Therefore, a stable numerical scheme simulating the inverse smoothing effect is introduced. Enhancement is obtained for short time spans of evolution. Carrying the evolution further yields shape exaggeration or caricaturization effect. Introducing attraction forces between the evolving shape and the initial one yields an enhancement process that converges to a steady state. These forces depend on the distance of the evolving curve from the original one and on local properties. Results of applying the unrestrained and restrained evolution on planar shapes, based on a stabilized inverse geometric heat equation, are presented showing enhancement and caricaturization effects.