Method and Apparatus for Digitizing the Appearance of a Real Material

A system for determining reflectance properties of a reflecting surface of a structure, comprising:

• a support part on which the structure may be mounted;
• at least one first light source comprising a broadband point light source oriented toward the reflecting surface;
• at least one second light source comprising a spectrally variable point light source oriented toward the reflecting surface;
• at least one third light source comprising a linear broadband light source oriented toward the reflecting surface at a plurality of angles of illumination;
• a fourth light source comprising a structured light source oriented toward the reflecting surface;
• at least one digital camera;
• and
• a computer which is operatively coupled to the at least one digital camera and configured to execute a computer program which, when running on the computer or when loaded onto the computer, causes the computer to perform the following data processing steps:
• acquiring first image data from the at least one digital camera corresponding to a reflection signal of the first light source from the reflecting surface;
• acquiring second image data from the at least one digital camera corresponding to a reflection signal of the second light source from the reflecting surface;
• acquiring third image data from the at least one digital camera corresponding to a reflection signal of the third light source from the reflecting surface;
• acquiring fourth image data from the at least one digital camera corresponding to a reflection signal of the fourth light source from the reflecting surface;
• determining reflecting surface mapping data describing a mapping between the reflections described by the first image data, the second image data, the third image data, and the fourth image data.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including a computer program which, when running on a computer or when loaded onto a computer, causes the computer to perform the following data processing steps:

• a) acquiring first image data describing an image of a reflection of a point source of broadband light from the reflecting surface;
• b) acquiring second image data describing a plurality of images of reflections of a point source of light from the reflecting surface at a plurality of spectral colors;
• c) acquiring third image data describing a plurality of images of reflections of a linear source of light from the reflecting surface at a plurality of angles of illumination;
• d) acquiring surface geometry data describing a three-dimensional surface geometry of the reflecting surface;
• and
• e) determining, based on the first image data and the second image and the third image data and the surface geometry data, reflecting surface mapping data describing a mapping between the reflections described by the first image data, second image data, third image data and the three-dimensional surface geometry of the reflecting surface.