ANAHEIM, CA Computer graphics and digital video lag behind reality, admit Hanspeter Pfister and Todd Zickler, computer science faculty at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) who are working to narrow the gap between virtual and real.
Pictured above Hanspeter Pfister(left) and Todd Zickler(right).
Despite advances, the best software and video cameras still cannot seem to get computer-generated images and digital film to look exactly the way our eyes expect them to. As a result, Pfister and Zickler are asking a common question: How do we see what we see?
Between them, Pfister and Zickler are presenting three papers this week at SIGGRAPH 2013, the 40th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.
Realistic soap One project led by Zickler, the William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, tries to find better ways to mimic the appearance of a translucent object, such as a bar of soap. The paper elucidates how humans perceive and recognize real objects and how software can exploit the details of that process to make the most realistic computer-rendered images possible.
If I put a block of butter and a block of cheese in front of you, and theyre the same color, and youre looking for something to put on your bread, you know which is which, says Zickler. The question is, how do you know that? What in the image is telling you something about the material?
His hope is to eventually understand these properties well enough to instruct a computer with a camera to identify what material an object is made of and to know how to properly handle it-how much it weighs or how much pressure to safely apply to it-the way humans do.
The new approach focuses on translucent materials phase function, part of a mathematical description of how light refracts or reflects inside an object, and therefore, how we see what we see.
In the past, phase function shape was considered relevant to an objects translucent appearance, but formal perceptual studies had never been carried out. The space of different phase functions is so vast and perceptually diverse to the human brain that modern computational tools were required to generate and analyze so many different images.
Zicklers team took advantage of increased computational power to trim down the potential space of images to a manageable size. They first rendered thousands of computer-generated images of one object with different computer-simulated phase functions, so each images translucency was slightly different from the next. From there, a program compared each images pixel colors and brightness to another image in the space and decided how different the two images were. Through this process, the software created a map of the phase function space according to the relative differences of image pairs, making it easy for the researchers to identify a much smaller set of images and phase functions that were representative of the whole space.
Finally, the researchers asked people to compare these representative images and judge how similar or different they were, shedding light on the properties that help us decide which objects are plastic and which are soap simply by looking at them.
This study, aiming to understand the appearance space of phase functions, is the tip of the iceberg for building computer vision systems that can recognize materials, says Zickler. The next step in this research will involve finding ways to accurately measure a materials phase functions instead of making them up computationally, and Zicklers team is already making progress on this, with a new system that will be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia in December.
Zicklers coauthors were Ioannis Gkioulekas, a graduate student at Harvard SEAS; Bei Xiao and Edward H. Adelson of MIT; and Shuang Zhao and Kavita Bala of Cornell University.
Adaptive displays A second study involving Zickler investigates a new type of screen hardware that displays different images when lit or viewed from different directions.
By creating tiny grooves of varying depths across the screens surface, Zicklers team created optical interference effects that cause the thin surface to look different when illuminated or viewed from different angles.
The paper essentially asks, If I know what appearances I want the screen to have, how do I optimize the geometric structure to get that? Zickler explains.
The solution takes advantage of mathematical functions (called bidirectional reflectance distribution functions) that represent how light coming from a particular direction will reflect off a surface.
Past attempts to control surface reflection for graphics applications have only been accomplished for surfaces displaying huge images that, for example, have pixels the size of a square inch, because their analyses did not account for interference effects. Zicklers work, however, demonstrates that interference effects can be exploited to control reflection from a screen at micron scales using well-known photolithographic techniques.
In the future, this kind of optimization could enable multi-view, lighting-sensitive displays, where a viewer rotating around a flat surface could perceive a three-dimensional object while looking at the surface from different angles, and where the virtual object would correctly respond to external lighting. Looking at such a display would be exactly like looking through a window, Zickler says.
He was joined on this paper by Ying Xiong, a graduate student at Harvard SEAS; Anat Levin and Daniel Glazner at the Weizmann Institute of Science; and Fr do Durand, William Freeman, and Wojciech Matusik at MIT.
Vivid color A third paper, led by Hanspeter Pfister, An Wang Professor of Computer Science, tackled a problem in digital film editing. (Video is available online at: http://you
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
ANAHEIM, CA Computer graphics and digital video lag behind reality, admit Hanspeter Pfister and Todd Zickler, computer science faculty at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) who are working to narrow the gap between virtual and real. 
