Shape Manipulation using Pixel Rewrites

In the interest of developing techniques for manipulating shapes that do not have easy algebraic generators, we explore pixel-rewriting rules that work directly on the raster representations. This paper illustrates several simple pixel level rules and how they can be put together to achieve a variety of complex kinds of functionality including moving arbitrary blobs, shortening curves, and area preserving deformations. A new pixel-rule match optimization is also presented.