Java™ Media APIs: Cross-Platform Imaging, Media, and Visualization

Modeling Light and Shadows

In the real world, any object is visible because it reflects light. Various materials reflect light in different ways, and these differences add to our perception of individual objects. Computer renderings can only simulate the effects of real light using colors. This process, called shading, is an artistic technique used by painters to increase the realism of scenes. Shading is also a computational technique in 3D graphics that can be used to increase the immersive impact of any 3D scene.

There are three main types of computer generated lighting that we will consider here. The first, termed radiosity, gives the best approximation to real world lighting but is too computationally expensive to consider for interactive ...