are locally described by classical differential geometry. In case some spatial direction (e.g., the direction of gravity in the natural landscape or the viewing direction in visual space) assumes a special role, this formalism has to be replaced by the special theory of “topographic surfaces’’ and one speaks of “surface relief ’’ (Liebmann, 1902/1927). Examples include topographic relief and— i...

The relief of Franz Ludwig Pfyffer, constructed between 1762 and 1786, is considered the world’s oldest large landscape model and a pioneering work of Swiss cartography. Based on Pfyffer’s own measurements, the 26 m big work represents topographically an area of almost 4100 km. The relief, which served as a basis for several printed maps issued at the end of the 18th century, is now a subject o...

3D models of the skin surface of patients are created by ultra-fast holography and automatic scan matching of synchronously recorded holograms. By recording with a pulsed laser and continuous-wave optical reconstruction of the holographic real image, motion artifacts are eliminated. Focal analysis of the real image yields a surface relief of the patient. To generate a complete 360◦ patient mode...

Azobenzene polymer thin films exhibit reversible surface mass transport when irradiated with a light intensity and/or polarization gradient, although the exact mechanism remains unknown. In order to address the role of thermal effects in the surface relief grating formation process peculiar to azo polymers, a cellular automaton simulation was developed to model heat flow in thin films undergoin...

Thin films of polymers containing non-linear optical chromophores based on azobenzene have been shown to respond mechanically to low power light interference, resulting in a transfer of an arbitrary optical pattern to surface relief in a single step, often well below the usual glass transition temperature. The timescale for this process is seconds to minutes, and the resulting surface relief pa...

This paper describes a new method to automatically generate digital bas-reliefs with depth-of-field effects from general scenes. Most previous methods for bas-relief generation take input in the form of 3D models. However, obtaining 3D models of real scenes or objects is often difficult, inaccurate, and time-consuming. From this motivation, we developed a method that takes as input a set of pho...