Intuitive shape modeling by shading design

Abstract

Shading has a great impact to the human perception of 3D objects. Thus, in order to create or to deform a 3D object, it seems natural to manipulate its perceived shading. This paper presents a new solution for the software implementation of this idea. Our approach is based on the ability of a user to coarsely draw a shading, under different lighting directions. With this intuitive process, users can create or edit a height field (locally or globally), that will correspond to the drawn shading values. Moreover, we present the possibility to edit the shading intensity by means of a specular reflectance model. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.