Patent ID: 8629883

Claim:
A method for generating a cartoon, comprising: receiving a digital image for processing at a server; receiving user-specified parameters describing functionality associated with processing the digital image; producing an edgeless primitive color quantization image utilizing one or more of the user-specified parameters, the producing including: dividing the entire digital image into a plurality of regions based on a hierarchical overlapping hexagonal topology; for each specific region of the plurality of regions, selecting a specific color as a function of colors found in the specific region; for each specific region, applying the selected specific color as a specific color for the specific region, whereby each specific region in the color-reduced image has only a single color; generating a sketch from the digital image utilizing one or more of the user-specified parameters with a Difference of Gaussian procedure; applying a coherence enhancing filtering (CED) procedure to enhance the sketch; applying the CED procedure to enhance the edgeless primitive color quantization image, wherein the CED procedure is applied to all channels of the edgeless primitive color quantization image by computing a common diffusion tensor for all the channels, the computing the common diffusion tensor including extracting a Y component of YUV color domain of the edgeless primitive color quantization image, computing the common diffusion tensor on the Y component, and using the common diffusion tensor to apply the CED procedure on all the channels of the edgeless primitive color quantization image; and combining the edgeless primitive color quantization image and the sketch into a processed cartoon, wherein the rendering styles of the edgeless primitive color quantization image and the sketch are different and said combining includes multiplying the edgeless primitive color quantization with the sketch.