Measurement of surface orientations of transparent objects using polarization in highlight

This paper proposes a method for obtaining surface orientations of transparent objects using polarization in highlight. Since the highlight, the specular component of reflection light from objects, is observed only near the specular direction, it appears merely on limited parts on an object surface. In order to obtain orientations of a whole object surface, we employ a spherical extended light source. This paper reports its experimental apparatus, a shape recovery algorithm, and its performance evaluation.