Automatic generation of woodblocks for virtual printing

We present a method to generate virtual woodblocks for virtual printing from a gray value image or a full-color image. In this method, a virtual board is carved automatically by the virtual sculpting system extracting features or colors of the given image. A printing image is synthesized using the woodblock in the virtual printing system. Using a gray value image as a draft, the sculpting system generates one virtual woodblock that expresses gray values with carving marks, and the draft image can be transformed into another one like a woodblock print by using it in the printing system. Using a full-color image, several virtual woodblocks for each color of ink are generated, and we can synthesize a multi-colored woodblock print by printing a virtual paper sheet with virtual woodblocks for each color one after another. The methods we propose here are useful in synthesizing non-photorealistic images with computer graphics.