A reflectance model for computer graphics

a new reflectance model for rendering computer synthesized images is presented. the mode accounts for the relative brightness of different materials and light sources in the same scene. it describes the directional distribution of the reflected light and a color shift that occurs as the reflectance changes with incidence angle. a method for obtaining the spectral energy distribution of the light reflected from an object made of a specific real material is presented, and a procedure for accurately reproducing the color associated with the spectral enery distribution is discussed. the model is applied to the simulation of a metal and a plastic.

introduction
the rendering of realistic images in computer graphics requires a model of how objects reflect light. the reflectance model must describe both the color and the spatial distribution of the reflected light. the model is independent of the other aspects of image synthesis, such as the surface geometry representation and the hidden surface algorithm.

most real surfaces are neither ideal specular (mirrolike) reflectors nor ideal diffuse (Lambertian) reflectors. Phong proposed a reflectance model for computer graphics that was a linear combination of specular and diffsue reflection. the specular component was spread out around the specular direction by using a cosine function raised to a power. subsequent, blinn used similar ideas together with a specular reflection model from, which accounts for the off-specular peaks that occur when the incident light is at a grazing angle relative to the surface normal. whitted extended these methods by adding a term for idea specular reflection from perfectly smooth surfaces. all of these models are based on geometrical optics (ray theory).

the foregoing models treat reflection as consisting of three components: ambient, diffuse, and specular. the ambient component represents light that is assumed to be uniformly incident from the environment and that is reflected equally in all directions by the surface. the diffuse and specular components are associated with light from specific light sources. the diffuse component represents light that is scattered equally in all directions. the specular component represents highlights, light that is concentrated around the mirror direction. the specular component was assumed to be the color of the light source; 呢？这句话的是是高光分量，被认为是光源的颜色？？
the Fresnel equation was used to obtain the angular variation of the intensity, but not the color, of the specular component. the ambient and diffuse components were assumed to be the color of the material. the resulting models produce images that look realistic for certain types of materials.

this paper presents a reflectance model for rough surfaces that is more general than previous models. it is based on geometrical optics and is applicable to a broad range of materials, surface conditions, and lighting situations. the basis of this model is a reflectance definition that relates the brightness of an object to the intensity and size of each light source that illuminates it. the model predicts the directional distribution and spectral composition of the reflected light. a procedure is described for calculating red, green, and blue (RGB) values from the spectral energy distribution. the new reflectance model is then applied to the simulation of a metal and a plastic, with an explanation of why images rendered with previous models often look plastic, and how this plastic appearance can be avoided.

the reflectance model
given a light source, a surface, and an observer, a reflectance model describes the intensity and spectral composition of the reflected light reaching the observer. the intensity of the reflected light is determined by the intensity and size of the light source and by the reflecting ability and surface properties of the material.

the spectral 光谱 composition of the reflected light is determined by the spectral composition of the light source and the wavelength-selective reflection of the surface. in this section the appropriate reflectance definitions are introduced and combined into a general reflectance model. figure 1 contains a summary of the symbols used in this model.

the geometry of reflection is shown in figure 2. an observer is looking at a point P on a surface. v is the unit vector in the direction of the viewer, n is the unit normal to the surface, and l is the unit vector in the direction of specific light source. h is a normalized vector in the direction of the angular bisector 平分线 of v and l, and is defined by

which is the unit normal to a hypothetical 假设 surface that would reflect light specularly from the light source to the viewer. a is the angle between H and N, and θ is the angle between H and V, so that cos(θ) = V.H = L.H.

the energy of the incident light is expressed as energy per unit time and per unit area of the reflecting surface. the intensity of the incident light is similar, but is expressed per unit projected area and, in addition, per unit solid angle. (solid angle is the projected area of the light source divided by the square of the distance to the light source and can be treated as a constant for a distant light source.) the energy in an incoming beam of light is

except for mirros or near-mirros, the incoming beam is reflected over a wide range of angles. for this reason, the reflected intensity in any given direction depends on the incident energy, not just on the incident intensity. the ratio of the reflected intensity in a given direction to the incident energy from another direction (within a small solid angle) is called the bidirectional reflectance. this reflectance is fundamental for the study of reflection. for each light source, the bidirectional reflectance R is thus

the reflected intensity reaching the viewer from each light source is then

the bidirectional reflectance may be split into two components, specular and diffuse. The specular component represents light that is reflected from the surface of the material. The diffuse component originates from internal scattering (in which the incident light penetrates beneath the surface of the material) or from multiple surface reflections (which occur if the surface is sufficiently rough). The specular and diffuse components can have different colors if the material is not homogeneous. The bidirectional reflectance is thus
双向反射可以分为两个部分：镜面反射部分（这是物体表面的）+ 漫反射部分

In addition to direct illumination by individual light sources, an object may be illuminated by background or ambient illumination. All light that is not direct illumination from a specific light source is lumped 集综 together into ambient illumination. The amount of light reflected toward the viewer from any particular direction of ambient illumination is small, but the effect is significant when integrated over the entire hemisphere of illuminating angles.
这句话写的好，从某一个方向的环境照明效果是微弱的，但是如果是整个半球的环境照明加起来那么效果则是很明显。
Consequently, it is convenient to introduce an ambient (or hemispherical-directional) reflectance, R,. This reflectance is an integral of the bidirectional reflectance R and is thus a linear combination of Rs and Rd. For simplicity, we assume that Ra is independent of viewing direction. In addition we assume that the ambient illumination is uniformly incident. The reflected intensity due to ambient illumination is defined by

The term f is the fraction of the illuminating hemisphere that is not blocked by nearby objects (such as a corner) [25]. It is given by

where the integration is done over the unblocked part of the illuminating hemisphere.

The total intensity of the light reaching the observer is the sum of the reflected intensities from all light sources plus the reflected intensity from any ambient illumination. Assuming that f = 1, the basic reflectance model used in this paper becomes
反射到物体身上的强度=所有光源的反射强度+环境反射强度

this formulation accounts for the effect of light sources with different intensities and different projected areas which may illuminate a scene. for example, an illuminating beam with the same intensity (Ii) and angle of illumination (N.L) as another beam, but with twice the solid angle (dwi) of that beam, will make a surface appear twice as bright. an illuminating beam with twice the itensity of another beam, but with the same angle of illumination and solid angle, will also make a surface appear twice as bright.

this paper does not consider the reflection of light from other objects in the environment. this reflection can be calculated as in [24] or [6] if the surface is perfectly smooth, but even this pure specular reflection should be wavelength dependent.

the above reflectance model implicitly depends on several variables. for example, the intensities depend on wavelenth, s and d depend on the material, and the reflectances depend on these variables plus the reflection geometry and the surface roughness. the next two sections consider the directional and wavelength dependence of the reflectance model.

direcitonal distribution of the reflected light
反射光的方向分布

the ambient and diffuse components reflect light equally in all directions. thus Ra and Rd do not depend on the location of the observer. on the other hand, the specular component reflects more light in some directions than in others, so that Rs does depend on the location of the observer.

the angular spread of the specular component can be desribed by assuming that the surface consists of mircofactes, each of which reflects specularly [23]. only facets whose normal is in the direction H contribute to the specular component of reflection from L to V. the specular component is

the Fresnel term F describes how light is reflected from each smooth microfacet. it is a function of incidence angle and wavelength and is discussed in the next section. the geometrical attenuation factor G accounts for the shadowing and masking of one facet by another is discussed in detail in [5,6,23]. briefly, it is

the facet slope 面的坡度 distribution function D represents the fraction of the facets that are oriented in the direction H.

various facet slope distribution functions 各种坡面分布函数 have been considered by Blinn [5,6]. one of the formulations he described is the Gaussian model [23]:

where c is an arbitrary constant.

in addition to the ones mentioned by Blinn, other facet slope distribution models are possible. in particular, models for the scattering of radar and infrared radiation from surfaces are available and are applicable to visible wavelengths. for example, Davies [9] described the spatial distribution of electromagnetic radiation reflected from a rough surface made of a perfect electrical conductor.
Bennett and Porteus[3] extended these results to real metals, and Torrance and Sparrow [22] showed that they apply to nonmetals as well. Beckmann [2] provided a comprehensive 全面的 theory that encompasses all of these materials and is applicable to a wide range of surface conditions ranging from smooth to very rough. for rough surfaces, the Beckmann distribution function is

this distribution function is similar in shape to the three functions mentioned by Blinn. the advantage of the Beckmann function is that it gives the absolute magnitude of the reflectance without introducing arbitrary constants; the disadvantage is that it requires more computation.
in all of the facet slope distribution functions, the spread of the specular component 镜面扩散 depends on the root mean square (rms) slope m. small values of m signify gentle facet slopes 缓坡面 and give a distribution that is highly directional around the specular direction, m的小值表示缓坡面，并给出了一个在镜面方向上高度定向的分布，as shown in figure 3a for the Beckmann distribution model and in figure 3b for the Gaussian model. large values of m imply steep facet slopes and give a distribution that is spread out, as shown in figure 3c and 3d for the Beckmann and Gaussian models, respectively. note the similarity between the two models.

the wavelength dependence of the reflectance is not affected by the surface roughness except for surfaces that are almost completely smooth, 除了表面几乎完全光滑外，反射率的波长依赖性不受表面粗糙度的影响 which are described by physical optics (wave theory) and which are described by physical optics (wave theory) and which have a distribution function D that is wavelength dependent. the Beckmann distribution model accounts for this wavelength dependence and for the transition region between physical and geometrical optics (i.e., between very smooth surfaces and rough surfaces). for simplicity, we ignore the cases in which D is wavelength dependent. 只要记住这句话就行了。
(for a further discurssion, see [2] and [9].)

some surfaces have two or more scales of roughness, or slope m, and can be modeled by using two or more distribution functions [16]. in such cases, D is expressed as a weighted sum of the distribution functions, each with a different value of m:

where mj is the rms slope of the jth distribution and wj is the weight of the jth distribution. the sum of these weights is 1.

spectral composition of the reflected light 反射光的光谱组成
the ambient, diffuse, and specular reflectances all depend on wavelength. Ra, Rd, and the F term of Rs may be obtained from the appropriate reflectance spectra for the material. a nonhomogeneous material may have different reflectance spectra for each of the three reflectances, though Ra is restricted to being a linear combination of Rs and Rd.

reflectance spectra have been measured for thousands of materials and collected in [10,17-19]. 对数千种材料的反射光谱进行了测量 the reflectance data are usually for illumination at normal incidence (垂直入射). these values are normally measured for polished surfaces and must be multiplied by 1/π to obtain the bidirectional reflectance for a rough surface [20]. most materials are measured at only a few wavelengths in the visible range (typically around 10 to 15), so that values for intermediate wavelengths must be interpolated (a simple linear interpolation seems to be sufficient). the reflectance spectrum of a copper mirror for normal incidence is shown for visible wavelengths in figure 4a.

Fig. 4. (a) Reflectance of a copper mirror for normal incidence. Wavelength is in micrometers.

in choosing a reflectance spectrum, careful consideration must be given to the conditions under which the measurements were made. for example, some metals develop an oxide layer with time which can drastically alter the color.