Traditional computer displays are designed to be consistent in varying illumination and viewing conditions. But the real world does not consist of constant colors. It is filled with materials that reflect the surrounding light in characteristic ways. This new approach points the way to a future generation of displays that show the reflectance of materials instead of colors. The goal is to create a surface where the appearance and its relationship to the observer's position and the illuminating environment can be controlled dynamically. The display is based on a liquid surface excited by waves in a controlled way to achieve a varying degree of anisotropic roughness. The resulting probability density function of the surface normal is shown to follow a Gaussian distribution, through which it can be related to popular reflectance models (for example, the Ward BRDF).
Matthias Hullin
Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
Hendrik P. A. Lensch
