Light field projection for lighting reproduction

Abstract

We propose a novel approach to generate 4D light field in the physical world for lighting reproduction. The light field is generated by projecting lighting images on a lens array. The lens array turns the projected images into a controlled anisotropic point light source array which can simulate the light field of a real scene. In terms of acquisition, we capture an array of light probe images from a real scene, based on which an incident light field is generated. The lens array and the projectors are geometric and photometrically calibrated, and an efficient resampling algorithm is developed to turn the incident light field into the images projected onto the lens array. The reproduced illumination, which allows per-ray lighting control, can produce realistic lighting result on real objects, avoiding the complex process of geometric and material modeling. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with a prototype setup.