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New Algorithm Impressively Depixelates Pixel Art

by Robert Quigley | 9:43 am, May 24th, 2011

In a new research paper, Microsoft’s Johannes Kopf and The Hebrew University’s Dani Lischinski describe a new algorithmic method for converting pixel art into sweet, smooth vectors. In the examples above, each of the images in the middle show the results of Kopf’s and Lischinski’s method as compared to the pixel input on the left and the (worse) results of other depixelating algorithms on the right. (It does make the Space Invader look kind of terrifying, though.) As can be seen from the examples, this could potentially be applied to emulating classic video games, among other uses:

There are many avenues for future work. Obviously, it would be nice to optimize the performance of the algorithm so that it can be applied in real-time in an emulator. Some of the ideas presented in this work can potentially benefit general image vectorization techniques.

Another interesting direction would be to improve the handling of anti-aliased input images. This might by done by rendering some curves as soft edges rather than sharp contours. A whole new interesting topic would be to look into temporal upsampling of animated pixel art images. If we magnify from a tiny input toHD resolution, locations are quite quantized which might result in “jumpy” animations. Since many modern display devices are operating at a much higher refresh rate than earlier hardware, one could improve the animations by generating intermediate frames.

Full paper here.

(Scribd via Reddit | Johannes Kopf’s website, Dani Lischinski’s website)

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/ZKWDUUGBE65MVDOPQ7EQ3HD4QM slander

    Zoom in right there… Enhance!

  • Aaron M.

    The sharp edges is what make pixel art. you can’t go a change an art period just because it isn’t smooth.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/Jed.Oliver Jed Oliver

    Or, as I call it, the Dust and Scratches filter in Photoshop.

  • Anonymous

    Just import those filters in some Super Nes emulator and see what it can do in action :)

  • Anonymous

    tinyurl.com/4ow75ws

  • Howard Derp

    Why not?

  • http://twitter.com/Logomorph Alin

    @Aaron M. nobody said pixel art should be changed to smooth graphics. it’s just a nice algorithm people should know about:)

  • http://twitter.com/Logomorph Alin

    nobody said pixel art should be changed to smooth graphics. it’s just a nice algorithm people should know about:)

  • Bunie

    its neat to add to Emulators for HD-Play of classic favorites :D

  • Bunie

    its neat to add to Emulators for HD-Play of classic favorites :D

  • caio1985

    Pixelated images exists because of the limitation of the early limitations of videogames, not because they wanted to have them – although they are seen nowadays as a retro art.
    Regarding the article, it is just an algorithm that can transform pixelated images into smoothed edges if you don’t want to get the aliased effect of 80s. It has nothing to do with pixel art sucks or something like that. People should read the article’s abstract before saying nonsense.

  • Adilson de Almeida Junior

    At least, it will possible to improve the “upscaling” technologies”.

  • http://twitter.com/jadika Jade Thompson

    I like this. Will there be a program we can try this out with ourselves (especially if we don’t have PS)? I’d like to see some of my work as vectors…

  • http://www.facebook.com/ajkidd Drew Kidd

    Besides, it’s a fresh take on an old standard.  I’d take a depixelated Super Mario World for another spin.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ajkidd Drew Kidd

    Besides, it’s a fresh take on an old standard.  I’d take a depixelated Super Mario World for another spin.

  • Anonymous

    I wonder if this algo could be used to improve low-res videos that are blown up to viewed at a higher resolution? Or if its just specific to pixel art. Either way, good stuff.

  • Anonymous

    tinyurl.com/297sxrk

  • Webdesigndemon

    Japanese censorship look out.

  • Jeff

    It looks like it’s much better at translating pixel art with a lot of rounded edges versus those with hard corners (it appears to round-off everything).  That said, it’s still awesome and amazing.  I think there’s still interesting work to improve/implement some straight edge detection for some of these

  • Johannesmutlu

    this is absoluteley freaking awsome,this can be ideal for early 3d games like doom and wolfenstein 3d etc,,, the only downside is that the colors in the images looks round off and flat,you can avoid this by dithering those colors down.
    so if they will also implement color dithering,it will look absolutely perfect!!


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