Spatially Variant Real World Light for Computer Graphics

Lighting is a vital component in the generation of photorealistic computer graphics. The feature film visual effects industry relies heavily on seamless integration of computer generated imagery (CGI) with live action footage.

Image based lighting (IBL) combined with high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) has been the defacto standard for lighting integration in visual effects. But IBL has one major downfall, it only captures the directional light arriving at one point in space and is therefore not suitable for scenes exhibiting differing lighting conditions.

I present a system for the practical acquisition of, and rendering with, spatially variant real world light.

Thesis Proposal (66kb) - written before I knew about the wonderful world of LaTeX
Thesis (13mb) - hyperlinked pdf

For a concise overview and additional findings please see my poster on Spatial Image-Based Lighting.

Renders

These animations have been rendered with V-Ray and the spatial image based light as described in the thesis. The two sparse light fields used in these renders can be seen in the gallery below. Models are generously provided by the Stanford 3D Scanning Repository.

Relevant links

1. Camera Calibration Toolbox for Generic Lenses v2
2. VRay renderer chosen for the implementation of the spatial light
3. Maya VRay is now available for Maya
4. VXL C++ Libraries for Computer Vision Research and Implementation
5. Capturing and Rendering with Incident Light Fields relevant research
6. OpenEXR excellent open source HDR image format
7. Photomatix is a great HDR application, create HDRI's directly from raw camera images
8. The Stanford 3D Scanning Repository source of the models used in the renders