CHS: Small: A wave optics foundation for predictive materials in computer graphics

模拟光线如何从表面反射对于渲染逼真的计算机生成图像至关重要。渲染越来越多地用于从产品设计到广告再到大规模定制的应用中，这些应用需要足够精确的特定材料表示以用于设计和购买决策，但目前关于反射模型中增加精度和细节的研究正在与传统上用于计算机图形学的射线光学方法的基本限制相抵触。 这项研究旨在基于更精确的波动光学物理学为计算机图形学中的材料建立一个新的基础，创建一套新的反射率建模工具，可用于使现有模型更准确，并在需要时开发新模型。通过将计算机图形学更深入地融入设计、工程和制造，能够从材料的物理结构中真实预测其外观的渲染将产生广泛的影响。计算机图形学的新应用越来越需要能够根据材料的小尺度结构和光学特性信息准确预测光散射的模型。在很多情况下，这些预测模型不能使用传统的射线（几何）光学方法获得，因为材料在与可见光波长重叠的尺度上具有几何结构。另一方面，为动画、视觉效果和游戏开发的传统模型可以有效地描述（尽管不能预测）许多材料的外观。这些模型不需要被放弃来实现预测外观建模，但是需要从材料描述到模型参数的原则性方法。 这项工作将把图形的外观模型建立在波动光学模拟的坚实基础上，这将清楚地确定哪些材料可以直接使用传统模型精确建模，哪些需要调整这些模型的参数，哪些需要新的或通用的模型才能充分渲染它们。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Simulating how light reflects from surfaces is crucial to rendering realistic computer-generated images. Rendering is increasingly being used in applications, from product design to advertising to mass customization, that require representations of specific materials that are accurate enough to use for design and purchasing decisions, but current research on increasing accuracy and detail in reflection models is running up against fundamental limits of the ray optics approach that is traditionally used in computer graphics. This research aims to build a new foundation for materials in computer graphics based on the more accurate physics of wave optics, creating a new set of reflectance modeling tools that can be used to make existing models more accurate and to develop new models where they are needed. Renderings that can truly predict the appearance of new materials from their physical structure will have broad impact by enabling new and deeper integration of computer graphics into design, engineering, and manufacturing.New applications of computer graphics increasingly require models that can accurately predict light scattering based on information about the small-scale structure and optical properties of a material. In a great many cases these predictive models cannot be obtained using the traditional ray (geometric) optics approach, because materials have geometric structure at scales that overlap with the wavelengths of visible light. On the other hand, the traditional models developed for animation, visual effects, and games can effectively describe, though not predict, the appearance of many materials. These models need not be abandoned to achieve predictive appearance modeling, but principled ways to get from material descriptions to model parameters are needed. This work will put appearance models for graphics on a solid foundation of wave optics simulations that will clearly establish which materials can be accurately modeled using traditional models directly, which require adjustments to the parameters of those models, and which require new or generalized models to be able to render them adequately. Methods for finding model parameters to match given structures will be developed, as well as new models for phenomena that can't be described by existing ones.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.