Abstract

Creating realistic images has been a major focus in the study of computer graphics for much of its history. This e ort has led to mathematical models and algorithms that can compute predictive, or physically realistic, images from known camera positions and scene descriptions that include the geometry of objects, the re ectance of surfaces, and the lighting used to illuminate the scene. These images accurately describe the physical quantities that would be measured from a real scene. Because these algorithms can predict real images, they can also be used in inverse problems to work backward from photographs to attributes of the scene. Work on three such inverse rendering problems is described. The rst, inverse lighting, assumes knowledge of geometry, re ectance, and the recorded photograph and solves for the lighting in the scene. A technique using a linear least-squares system is proposed and demonstrated. Also demonstrated is an application of inverse lighting, called re-lighting, which modi es lighting in photographs. The second two inverse rendering problems solve for unknown re ectance, given images with known geometry, lighting, and camera positions. Photographic texture measurement

Citations