Non-Photorealistic Rendering with Pixel and Vertex Shaders

Development of cutting-edge graphics techniques like programmable pixel and vertex shaders are often motivated by a desire to achieve photorealistic renderings for gaming or simulation. In this paper, we apply vertex and pixel shaders to NonPhotorealistic Rendering (NPR). In many types of images such as cartoons and technical drawings, photorealism is not desirable. In the case of technical illustrations, nonphotorealistic rendering techniques are used to enhance understanding of the scene or object being drawn without obscuring important features such as outlines. In other cases, we simply hope to simulate other media such as cel-shaded cartoons, wood-block prints or hatched line drawings for stylistic purposes. In the following sections, we will apply Direct3D pixel and vertex shaders to implement and extend recent research efforts in non-photorealistic rendering.