Image-Based Acquisition of Shape and Spatially Varying Reflectance

The shape and reflectance of complex objects, for use in computer graphics applications, cannot always be acquired using specialized equipment due to cost or pratical considerations. We want to provide an easy and cost-effective way for the approximate recovery of both shape and spatially-varying reflectance of objects using commodity hardware. In this paper, we present an image-based technique for recovering 3D shape and spatially-varying reflectance properties from a sparse set of photographs, taken under varying illumination. Our technique models the reflectance with a set of low-parameter BRDFs without knowledge of the location of the light-sources or camera. This results an a flexible and portable system that can be used in the field. We successfully apply the approach to several objects (synthetic and real), recovering shape and reflectance. The acquired information can then be used to render the object with modifications to geometry and lighting via traditional rendering methods.