Digital painting is the field of software designed to provide artists a virtual medium to emulate the experience and results of physical drawing. Several hardware and software components come together to form a whole workflow, ranging from the physical input devices, to the stroking process, to the texture content authorship. This thesis explores an artist-friendly approach to synthesize the textures that give life to digital brush strokes.
Most painting software provides a limited library of predefined brush textures. They aim to offer styles approximating physical media like paintbrushes, pencils, markers, and airbrushes. Often these are static bitmap textures that are stamped onto the canvas at repeating intervals, causing discernible repetition artifacts. When more variety is desired, artists often download commercially available brush packs that expand the library of styles. However, included and supplemental brush packs are not easily artist-customizable.
In recent years, a separate field of digital art tooling has seen the popular growth of node-based procedural content generation. 3D models, shaders, and materials are commonly authored by artists using functions that can be linked together in a visual programming environment called a node graph. In this work, the feasibility is tested of using a node graph to procedurally generate highly customizable brush textures. The system synthesizes textures that adapt to parameters like pen pressure and stretch along the full length of each brush stroke instead of stamping repetitively. The result is a more flexible and artist-friendly way to define, share, and tweak brush textures used in digital painting.
","abstract_html":"<p>Digital painting is the field of software designed to provide artists a virtual medium to emulate the experience and results of physical drawing. Several hardware and software components come together to form a whole workflow, ranging from the physical input devices, to the stroking process, to the texture content authorship. This thesis explores an artist-friendly approach to synthesize the textures that give life to digital brush strokes.</p> <p>Most painting software provides a limited library of predefined brush textures. They aim to offer styles approximating physical media like paintbrushes, pencils, markers, and airbrushes. Often these are static bitmap textures that are stamped onto the canvas at repeating intervals, causing discernible repetition artifacts. When more variety is desired, artists often download commercially available brush packs that expand the library of styles. However, included and supplemental brush packs are not easily artist-customizable.</p> <p>In recent years, a separate field of digital art tooling has seen the popular growth of node-based procedural content generation. 3D models, shaders, and materials are commonly authored by artists using functions that can be linked together in a visual programming environment called a node graph. In this work, the feasibility is tested of using a node graph to procedurally generate highly customizable brush textures. The system synthesizes textures that adapt to parameters like pen pressure and stretch along the full length of each brush stroke instead of stamping repetitively. The result is a more flexible and artist-friendly way to define, share, and tweak brush textures used in digital painting.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Chambers, Keavon"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"MS in Computer Science","degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Christian Eckhardt","Computer Science","College of Engineering"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-06-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2022-06-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:32:29Z","subjects":["Digital Painting","Brush Simulation","Procedural Content Generation","Node Editor","Digital Art","Art Tooling","Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10.15368/theses.2022.76"],"render_values":[{"text":"10.15368/theses.2022.76","href":"https://doi.org/10.15368/theses.2022.76","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/2653","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Christian Eckhardt","Computer Science","College of Engineering"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Chambers, Keavon"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2022-06-10T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["MS in Computer Science"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Digital Painting","Brush Simulation","Procedural Content Generation","Node Editor","Digital Art","Art Tooling","Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/2653","10.15368/theses.2022.76"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Digital painting is the field of software designed to provide artists a virtual medium to emulate the experience and results of physical drawing. Several hardware and software components come together to form a whole workflow, ranging from the physical input devices, to the stroking process, to the texture content authorship. This thesis explores an artist-friendly approach to synthesize the textures that give life to digital brush strokes.
Most painting software provides a limited library of predefined brush textures. They aim to offer styles approximating physical media like paintbrushes, pencils, markers, and airbrushes. Often these are static bitmap textures that are stamped onto the canvas at repeating intervals, causing discernible repetition artifacts. When more variety is desired, artists often download commercially available brush packs that expand the library of styles. However, included and supplemental brush packs are not easily artist-customizable.
In recent years, a separate field of digital art tooling has seen the popular growth of node-based procedural content generation. 3D models, shaders, and materials are commonly authored by artists using functions that can be linked together in a visual programming environment called a node graph. In this work, the feasibility is tested of using a node graph to procedurally generate highly customizable brush textures. The system synthesizes textures that adapt to parameters like pen pressure and stretch along the full length of each brush stroke instead of stamping repetitively. The result is a more flexible and artist-friendly way to define, share, and tweak brush textures used in digital painting.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Artist-Configurable Node-Based Approach to Generate Procedural Brush Stroke Textures for Digital Painting"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Christian Eckhardt","Computer Science","College of Engineering"],"dc:creator":["Chambers, Keavon"],"dc:date.available":["2022-06-10T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Digital painting is the field of software designed to provide artists a virtual medium to emulate the experience and results of physical drawing. Several hardware and software components come together to form a whole workflow, ranging from the physical input devices, to the stroking process, to the texture content authorship. This thesis explores an artist-friendly approach to synthesize the textures that give life to digital brush strokes.
Most painting software provides a limited library of predefined brush textures. They aim to offer styles approximating physical media like paintbrushes, pencils, markers, and airbrushes. Often these are static bitmap textures that are stamped onto the canvas at repeating intervals, causing discernible repetition artifacts. When more variety is desired, artists often download commercially available brush packs that expand the library of styles. However, included and supplemental brush packs are not easily artist-customizable.
In recent years, a separate field of digital art tooling has seen the popular growth of node-based procedural content generation. 3D models, shaders, and materials are commonly authored by artists using functions that can be linked together in a visual programming environment called a node graph. In this work, the feasibility is tested of using a node graph to procedurally generate highly customizable brush textures. The system synthesizes textures that adapt to parameters like pen pressure and stretch along the full length of each brush stroke instead of stamping repetitively. The result is a more flexible and artist-friendly way to define, share, and tweak brush textures used in digital painting.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/2653","10.15368/theses.2022.76"],"dc:subject":["Digital Painting","Brush Simulation","Procedural Content Generation","Node Editor","Digital Art","Art Tooling","Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces"],"dc:title":["Artist-Configurable Node-Based Approach to Generate Procedural Brush Stroke Textures for Digital Painting"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Science"],"thesis:degree_name":["MS in Computer Science"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:32:29Z"}