Hughes/Computer Graphics, 3/E

Chapter 27. Materials and Scattering

27.1. Introduction

This chapter is about the way we model the interaction of light with objects. The first several sections are about the physics and mathematical representation of these interactions. At the end, we briefly discuss a software interface that’s well suited to the rendering we’ll do later.

The first step in our discussion is to limit consideration, for much of the chapter, to light-object interactions that occur at surfaces; late in the chapter we briefly discuss the volumetric interaction that occurs in things like fog and colored water, etc. All these interactions, when considered locally (e.g., “Where does the light arriving at this bit of surface end up going?”), are called scattering. Mirror ...