Sparkle vision : seeing the world through random specular microfacets

This thesis studies the problem of reproducing the world lighting from a single image of an object covered with random specular microfacets on the surface. Such a reflector can be interpreted as a randomized mapping from the lighting to the image. This intrinsic randomness makes it challenging for humans to interpret the image of a specular surface. We propose a system to solve it algorithmically and demonstrate how a simple yet reliable method can calibrate the proposed system and do the inference. The success of such system relies on accurate exposure of the specular surfaces. However, such objects have very distinguished optical properties compared with both diffuse surfaces and smooth specular objects like metals. So we design a special imaging system to robustly and effectively photograph them. Finally we conduct experiments to verify the correctness of our model assumptions and prove the effectiveness of our pipeline.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Zhang, Zhengdong, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edward H. Adelson.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91084

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/91084