Keywords

Material Design, BRDF, Real-time Rendering, Importance Sampling

Abstract

In the computer graphics production environment, artists often must tweak specific lighting and material parameters to match a mind's eye vision of the appearance of a 3D scene. However, the interaction between a material and a lighting environment is often too complex to cognitively predict without visualization. Therefore, artists operate in a design cycle, where they tweak the parameters, wait for a visualization, and repeat, seeking to obtain a desired look. We propose the use of appearance-driven material design. Here, artists directly design the appearance of reflected light for a specific view, surface point, and time. In this thesis, we discuss several methods for appearance-driven design with homogeneous materials, spatially-varying materials, and appearance-matching materials, where each uses a unique modeling and optimization paradigm. Moreover, we present a novel treatment of the illumination integral using sampling theory that can utilize the computational power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) to provide real-time visualization of the appearance of various materials illuminated by complex environment lighting. As a system, the modeling, optimization and rendering steps all operate on arbitrary geometry and in detailed lighting environments, while still providing instant feedback to the designer. Thus, our approach allows materials to play an active role in the process of set design and story-telling, a capability that was, until now, difficult to achieve due to the unavailability of interactive tools appropriate for artists.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2008

Advisor

Hughes, Charles

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Degree Program

Computer Science

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0002217

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002217

Language

English

Release Date

September 2008

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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