Telligram: Text-Driven Calligram Generation via Diffusion-Guided Skeleton Optimization

Abstract

Compact calligram generation aims to form a semantic shape while keeping letters recognizable. Most existing methods are shape-conditioned and mainly solve downstream letter layout inside a given contour. We study text-only calligram generation without an input contour. This setting is difficult because semantic shape formation and letter readability strongly interfere with each other when optimized in a single stage. Pushing the word toward a clear figure can easily damage glyph structure, while preserving readable letters can weaken the target shape. To address this difficulty, we present Telligram, a training-free, low-tuning, two-stage framework composed of Semantic Occupancy Prior Formation and Readability-Constrained Glyph Realization. The first stage uses Variational Score Distillation (VSD) with structured skeleton optimization and hierarchical gradient projection to produce a semantic occupancy prior. The second stage converts this occupancy prior into per-letter regions and reconstructs readable glyph layouts through lightweight geometric processing. The framework generates coherent and creative word-level semantic calligrams directly from text prompts.