A Spectral Engine for Visualization

Full spectra allow the generation of physically correct rendering of a scene under different lighting conditions. Here, a tool is developed to design a palette of lights and materials having certain properties, such as selective metamerism or colour constancy. The mathematical underpinnings of the tool consist of two parts. Firstly, we make use of a method for optimally characterizing full spectra of lights, surfaces, and transmissioive materials by forming eigenvectors of sets of these and then transforming to an intermediate space in which spectral interactions reduce to simple component-wise multiplications. Secondly, we introduce appropriate optimization functions to create new sets of spectra from old, adding to sets of actual spectra so as to produce lights and reflectances that collude to generate spectral transfer function entries for bringing out or hiding parts of a graphics rendering. Technical Report SFU-CMPT-TR2004-06