Re-envisioning reality: reflectance field acquisition of actors, objects, and environments

In this talk I will present new techniques for digitizing the geometry and reflectance of real people, objects, and environments, allowing these elements to be recombined and reinterpreted in the service of new creative visions. On the topic of environments, I will present a technique employed to digitize and reunite the Parthenon and its sculptures, long separated between Athens and London. This work used 3D scanning, illumination capture, and environmental reflectometry to create a detailed and relightable model of the Greek temple. For digitizing objects, I will present new a new dual light stage process for capturing how an objects reflects light that reverses the direction that light is typically generated and sensed, allowing detailed specular and diffuse behavior to be captured for real-world objects. Finally, I will present a new technique for filming an actor's performance in such a way that the lighting on the actor can be designed and modified in postproduction: moving the key, adding a rim, gelling the fill, or matching the lighting to a background plate can all be accomplished photorealistically. The technique works by lighting the actor with time-multiplexed basis lighting conditions and filming with a high-speed video camera so that many lighting conditions are recorded in the span of a traditional frame of film.