Advances in geometry and reflectance acquisition (course notes)

The demands for digital 3D content for numerous applications such as video games, movies, virtual prototyping, advertisement, virtual reality, augmented reality or even digital preservation of cultural heritage objects has led to a need for efficient and accurate automatic acquisition systems for both geometry and reflectance. This short course sheds light on the acquisition ecosystem with three of its most important components that consist in accurate acquisition methods for geometry and reflectance as well as strategies towards an efficient acquisition pipeline to fulfill the demands of industry with respect to mass digitization of 3D contents. In this context, this course provides a thorough overview of the standard methods for the acquisition of both geometry and reflectance of surfaces with different types of reflectance behavior ranging from diffuse over opaque to specular surfaces or even translucent and transparent surfaces. These standard acquisition techniques are - by design - only well-suited for a limited range of surface materials and, hence, not adequate if no prior information with respect to the surface reflectance behavior is available. For this reason, we also discuss recent advances towards an efficient, fully automatic acquisition in the scope of the concluding remarks.