Browsing by Author "Walter, B."

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    Accurate Soil and Mudbrick BRDF Models for Archaeological Illumination Rendering with Application to Small Finds
    (The Eurographics Association, 2017) Badler, Virginia; Jr., Joseph Kider; Moore, Megan; Walter, B.; Badler, Norman; Tobias Schreck and Tim Weyrich and Robert Sablatnig and Benjamin Stular
    The prevalence of mudbrick structures in the ancient world presents an unexplored opportunity for the realistic portrayal of their appearance. 3D computer models are often constructed from architectural remains to study form and function essential to understanding ancient cultures. These 3D models are usually rendered with estimated colors or photographic images for texture and color reference. Unfortunately, the reflectance properties of soil and mudbrick materials are not well captured in single view photographs. We obtained soil and mudbrick samples from a 1973 excavation of Godin Tepe in Iran and performed a Bi-Directional Reflectance Function (BRDF) capture and analysis on the mudbrick, and both wet and dry soil samples. The resulting BRDFs are used to render the soil and mudbrick interior architecture of the Godin Tepe site. We did illumination studies based on direct sunlight, skydome, and annualized sky irradiance. In a case study we test the archaeological hypothesis that small finds may be found in poorly illuminated portions of enclosed rooms. The accurate sky dome, BRDF surface appearance, and global illumination models are used to assess the applicability and validity of this concept.