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Inverse global illumination: Recovering reflectance models of real scenes from photographs


Author(s) : Tim Hawkins Jitendra Malik Paul Debevec Yizhou Yu, 
Publisher : N/A
Publication Date : 1999
ISSN : N/A
Abstract : In this paper we present a method for recovering the reflectance properties of all surfaces in a real scene from a sparse set of photographs, taking into account both direct and indirect illumination. The result is a lighting-independent model of the scene's geometry and reflectance properties, which can be rendered with arbitrary modifications to structure and lighting via traditional rendering methods. Our technique models reflectance with a lowparameter reflectance model, and allows diffuse albedo to vary arbitrarily over surfaces while assuming that non-diffuse characteristics remain constant across particular regions. The method's input is a geometric model of the scene and a set of calibrated high dynamic range photographs taken with known direct illumination. The algorithm hierarchically partitions the scene into a polygonal mesh, and uses image-based rendering to construct estimates of both the,