Seeing Beyond Lambert's Law

Lambert's model for diffuse reflection is extensively used in computational vision. For several real-world objects, the Lambertian model can prove to be a very inaccurate approximation to the diffuse component. While the brightness of a Lambertian surface is independent of viewing direction, the brightness of a rough diffuse surface increases as the viewer approaches the source direction. A comprehensive model is developed that predicts reflectance from rough diffuse surfaces. Experiments have been conducted on real samples, such as, plaster, clay, and sand. The reflectance measurements obtained are in strong agreement with the reflectance predicted by the proposed model.