Viewing & Rendering

Illumination and Shading

Illumination model
- Expresses the factors determining a surface's color at a given point, e.g., at polygon vertices.
Shading model
- Determines when the illumination model is applied and the arguments that it receives
- Some shading models invoke an illumination model for each pixel; others invoke an illumination model for selected points, shading the rest by interpolation
Caveat: most illumination models used in graphics (especially in interactive 3-D graphics workstations) are picked for efficiency, not physical accuracy
- A major research goal is to develop models that are both efficient and physically correct (e.g., Cornell's research on photorealism)

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