Local Light Alignment for Multi-Scale Shape Depiction

Abstract

Motivated by recent findings in the field of visual perception, we present a novel approach for enhancing shape depiction and perception of surface details. We propose a shading-based technique that relies on locally adjusting the direction of light to account for the different components of materials. Our approach ensures congruence between shape and shading flows, leading to an effective enhancement of the perception of shape and details while impairing neither the lighting nor the appearance of materials. It is formulated in a general way allowing its use for multiple scales enhancement in real-time on the GPU, as well as in global illumination contexts. We also provide artists with fine control over the enhancement at each scale.