Gloss Archiving with Normal Vectors

This paper proposes a method of gloss archiving using normal vectors. When archiving the gloss phenomenon of a material, it is important to record not only the reflected light intensity but also the gloss unevenness. This is because the gloss unevenness greatly affects the texture of the material. However, it has been difficult to quantitatively record gloss unevenness because they are dependent on the viewing direction and lighting. Gloss unevenness on mirror surfaces are mainly caused by irregularities in the normal direction. Therefore, we came up with a solution to archive the gloss unevenness phenomenon by recording the distribution of surface normal vectors. We are currently developing a apparatus to measure the distribution of surface normal vectors. Using this surface normal data, it will be also possible to reproduce gloss unevenness images using Computer Graphics technology.