Radiance Scaling for Versatile Surface Enhancement
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Abstract
We present a novel technique called Radiance Scaling for the depiction of surface shape through shading. It adjusts reflected light intensities in a way dependent on both surface curvature and material characteristics. As a result, diffuse shading or highlight variations become correlated to surface feature variations, enhancing surface concavities and convexities. This approach is more versatile compared to previous methods. First, it produces satisfying results with any kind of material: we demonstrate results obtained with Phong and Ashikmin BRDFs, Cartoon shading, sub-Lambertian materials, and perfectly reflective or refractive objects. Second, it imposes no restriction on lighting environment: it does not require a dense sampling of lighting directions and works even with a single light. Third, it makes it possible to enhance surface shape through the use of precomputed radiance data such as Ambient Occlusion, Prefiltered Environment Maps or Lit Spheres. Our novel approach works in real-time on modern graphics hardware and is faster than previous techniques.