Interactive Images using Illustration Watermarks: Techniques, Studies, and Applications

A static 2D image can be turned into an interactive medium by providing descriptive information that is shown on demand. For this purpose, two challenges need to be solved. First, appropriate techniques for the storage of descriptive information and it’s linkage to the image content are needed. We address this challenge by applying techniques from information hiding, a procedure we call Illustration Watermarking. Results of a user study show that a new adaptive approach optimized for our application outperforms a traditional proceeding in terms of quality. The second challenge is to design interaction procedures which support the user in the exploration of descriptive information. Therefore, concepts are proposed to let the user find and retrieve properties of the embedded data and the data itself. Finally, we present various application scenarios for Illustration