Determining Shape and Reflectance Using Multiple Images

Abstract

Distributions of surface orientation and reflectance factor on the surface of an object can be determined from scene radiances observed by a fixed sensor under varying lighting conditions. Such techniques have potential application to the automatic inspection of industrial parts, the determination of the attitude of a rigid body in space and the analysis of images returned from planetary explorers. A comparison is made of this method with techniques based on images obtained from different viewpoints with fixed lighting.