Chapter Eight Reflection Models

This chapter defines a set of classes for describing the way that light scatters at surfaces. Recall that in Section 5.6.1 we introduced the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) abstraction to describe light reflection at a surface, the BTDF to describe transmission at a surface, and the BSDF to encompass both of these effects. In this chapter, we will start by defining a generic interface to these surface reflection and transmission functions. Scattering from realistic surfaces is often best described as a mixture of multiple BRDFs and BTDFs; in Chapter 9, we will introduce a BSDF object that combines multiple BRDFs and BTDFs to represent overall scattering from the surface. The current chapter ...

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