Toward a psychophysically-based light reflection model for image synthesis

In this paper we introduce a new light reflection model for image synthesis based on experimental studies of surface gloss perception. To develop the model, we've conducted two experiments that explore the relationships between the physical parameters used to describe the reflectance properties of glossy surfaces and the perceptual dimensions of glossy appearance. In the first experiment we use multidimensional scaling techniques to reveal the dimensionality of gloss perception for simulated painted surfaces. In the second experiment we use magnitude estimation methods to place metrics on these dimensions that relate changes in apparent gloss to variations in surface reflectance properties. We use the results of these experiments to rewrite the parameters of a physically-based light reflection model in perceptual terms. The result is a new psychophysically-based light reflection model where the dimensions of the model are perceptually meaningful, and variations along the dimensions are perceptually uniform. We demonstrate that the model can facilitate describing surface gloss in graphics rendering applications. This work represents a new methodology for developing light reflection models for image synthesis.