Where can I find, or how can I build, a cartoonizer for C#?

Question

I am working on the development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) in .NET using C# and Silverlight. One of the features that has been requested for this game is to allow players to upload their own avatars.

Rather than displaying the uploaded images in their raw forms, we want to convert the images to a cartoon form--in other words to cartoonize the image.

Several sites which can accomplish such a task are listed at http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/11-sites-to-create-cartoon-characters-of-yourself/

I realize that these sites are applying an image filter to create the cartoon image. Frankly, I have no reasonable idea what these cartoon image filter algorithms might look like or if there is anything already available in C# or .NET that I could use. If there are no libraries available, I am curious how difficult it would be to roll my own.

This is a minor game feature so I am not interested in devoting a week or more of coding time to implement this. However, if I can code up what I need within a day, then it is probably viable.

At this point, I am primarily looking for guidance as to

• what is possible
• what libraries are already available (preferably as open source)
• where i may find additional information
• any other advice or guidance you may be able to provide

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Apparently you apply a Gaussian Blur filter to the image. Then you sharpen the image. Perhaps the AForge libraries would help you out.

Answer 2

I've used code from the image processing lab on code project before with success. (update: here's the library it uses)

Christian Graus also has written a whole series on GDI image processing which I found useful (and has the effects listed above for filtering capabilities).