Recent advances in fabric appearance reproduction

Abstract

Reproducing the appearance of real world materials has been a long standing problem in computer graphics. Among them, fibrous materials such as cloth, remain as some of the most challenging to recreate. This is due to the intrinsic complexity of fabrics; their overall look is determined by both the anisotropic light scattering behavior exhibited at the fiber level, usually at the micron scale, and the weaving structure that constrains the alignment of those fibers. Despite the increasing research efforts in the different areas involved, from capturing to modeling, rendering and filtering, there is no single survey nowadays that collects and discusses the benefits, drawbacks and practical considerations of the available techniques that aim to reproduce the appearance of fabrics. In this review, we provide a comprehensive survey of the existing techniques involved at each of the different stages of fabric appearance reproduction. We aim to provide guidelines for practitioners to select among existing options in crucial aspects such as scattering models or fabric representations depending on each particular context, also discussing future lines of research and most promising paths in the direction of accurately representing virtual fabrics.