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Interreflections

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Computer Vision

Synonyms

Mutual illumination

Related Concepts

Bas-Relief Ambiguity; Diffuse Reflectance; Radiance

Definition

Interreflections are reflections of light from one surface to another surface.

Background

Surfaces are illuminated not just by light sources but also by each other. These interreflections can provide a significant component of surface illumination, especially in concavities or enclosures. Numerical methods for computing interreflections were developed in the early twentieth century to solve problems in heat transfer such as in furnace design. The methods were developed further by the computer graphics community in the 1980s to render global illumination for scenes with Lambertian surfaces and later for scenes with specular components [7, 8].

Theory

Interreflections can be described mathematically in several equivalent ways. One way is to write the reflected light as a sum of the light that is due to the illumination that arrives at a surface directly from the light source, plus...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Michael S. Langer

Authors
  1. Michael S. Langer
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Katsushi Ikeuchi

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Cite this entry

Langer, M.S. (2014). Interreflections. In: Ikeuchi, K. (eds) Computer Vision. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-31439-6_524

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