A full HDR pipeline from acquisition to projection

In the real world, the ratio between full brightness of the sun and complete darkness is in the range of 2.000.000.000:1. However today’s projection display technology is limited to contrast ratios of approximately 10.000:1. This hinders a convincing simulation and presentation of lighting effects in professional markets such as car styling, architecture and industrial design. At the same time, High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) has been developed as a new field of research resulting in breakthroughs in image based lighting. What is missing today are interactive visualisation systems that fully support HDR material and light information from the acquisition stage right through the processing stage to the display stage. Current software systems do exist to simulate the effect of light sources in virtual scenes. However, they require specialist training, they are complex to use, they cannot operate in real-time, often requiring modification and recalibration. Current systems also do not support HDRI. This means that not only do they lack the ability to simulate real lighting conditions, e.g. the position and intensity of the sun, cloudcover, but also the behaviour of materials in various light conditions.

References:

1. Santos, P., Schmedt, H., Hohmann, S., and Stork, A. 2009. The hybrid outdoor tracking extension for the daylight blocker display. In SIGGRAPH ASIA ’09: ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 Posters, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1–1.
2. Vandenberghe, P. Maximus, B. 2008. Challenges and technologies for multi-channel projection systems. SID Int. Symp. Digest Tech 1, 167–170.