Analysing the emotive effectiveness of rendering styles

Computer graphics images are characterised by both object information and emotive implications. To promote proper interpretation, it is important to convey incomplete or approximate object information in conceptual design, as well as emotive expressiveness, via the graphics interface. This paper presents a study of user perception and emotional responses to different rendering styles using Kansei Engineering. The investigation involved a sample comprising of 61 students and faculty, and 30 different rendering styles representing existing photorealistic (PR), non-photorealistic (NPR) and new vague rendering (VR) styles. The study has shown that VR styles are able to affect viewers of images in a different way than PR and NPR styles. That is, VR styles are most effective for conveying affective and functional content, PR styles for affective content, and NPR styles for affective, motivational and cognitive content.