Shading models for point and linear sources

Abstract

The degree of realism of the shaded image of a tree-dimensional scene depends on the successful simulation of shading effects. The shading model has two main ingredients, properties of the surface and properties of the illumination falling on it. Most previous work has concentrated on the former rather than the latter. This paper presents an improved version for generating scenes illuminated by point and linear light sources. The procedure can include intensity distributions for point light sources and output both umbrae and penumbrae for linear light sources, assuming thr environment is composed of convex polyhedra. This paper generalizes Crow's procedure for computing shadow volumes caused by the end points of the linear source results in an easy determination of the reions of penumbrae and umbrae on the face prior to shading calculation. This paper also discusses a method for displaying illuminance distribution on a shaded image aby using colored isolux contours.