CAREER: Modeling the Properties and Appearance of Materials

今天，尝试对复杂的自然场景进行非常逼真的渲染是可行的：例如，在电影特效行业中，一个特别的焦点是渲染逼真的人类。这样做的困难说明了目前关于皮肤、头发和布料的知识的不足，以及它们的物理性质如何产生这些材料独特的视觉外观。总的来说，计算机生成的图像质量的提高受到一个基本问题的限制：对材料特性的有效和准确的建模。这项研究通过从几个方面观察材料来解决这个问题：它们如何与光相互作用，它们如何在移动时改变形状和外观，以及人类观察者如何感知它们。与之前在图形材料方面的许多工作不同，本研究计划将材料特性的定义从单纯的光学特性扩展到包括机械特性及其影响。此外，材料外观是在人类视觉感知的背景下考虑的。这些目标导致了三个相关的研究路径：1。材料光学。光反射是渲染材料的核心，也是本研究的核心：利用科学的方法发展基础，从真实材料的测量到分析，再到渲染的实际模型。材料力学。认识到光学和静态几何仅足以表示刚性材料，该项目扩大了材料特性的定义，包括创造独特形状和运动的机械特性，这些特性对可变形材料的外观非常重要。对材料的感知。渲染是关于制作将由人类观察者观看的图像，并且为了实现效率和质量，更好地理解人类视觉系统如何解释，分类和推断材料的属性至关重要

Today it is feasible to attempt very realistic rendering of complex natural scenes: for example, in the film effects industry a particular focus is rendering realistic humans. The difficulty of doing this illuminates the shortcomings in current knowledge about skin, hair, and cloth and how their physical properties produce the distinctive visual appearance of these materials. Across the board, the increasing quality of computer-generated images is limited by a fundamental unsolved problem: the efficient and accurate modeling of the properties of materials. This research addresses this problem by looking at materials in several ways: how they interact with light, how they change their shape and appearance as they move, and how human observers perceive them.In a departure from much previous work on materials in graphics, this research program expands the definition of material properties from optical properties alone to include mechanical properties and their effects. Additionally, material appearance is considered in the context of human visual perception. These goals lead to three related paths of research:1. Optics of materials. Light reflection is central to rendering materials and forms the core of this research: developing the fundamentals using a scientific approach progressing from measurements of real materials through analysis to models that are practical for rendering.2. Mechanics of materials. Recognizing that optics and static geometry alone suffice only to represent rigid materials, this project broadens the definition of material properties to include the mechanical properties that create the distinctive shape and motion that are so important to the appearance of deformable materials.3. Perception of materials. Rendering is about making images that will be viewed by human observers, and to achieve efficiency and quality it is critical to have a better understanding of how the human visual system interprets, classifies, and infers properties of materials