Multi-scale Appearance Modeling of Complex Materials

Physically-based rendering has become mature and commonplace in recent decades. However, the rendered results look artificial and overly perfect. Better realism needs higher fidelity detailed geometry or model complexity, which substantially increases computational power and human works. To achieve higher physical realism and enable more effective material content creation, many techniques are developed in material reflection and scattering models. We put emphasis on accurately representing and reproducing the rich visual world from micro-level scales. The first half of the dissertation focuses on building the bridge from micro-model to macro properties: we present an accurate appearance model for layered materials derived from microstructures to define their optical behavior and a general framework of bulk scattering in participating medium which considers the microscale effects. Consequently, in the second half, we discuss the inverse problem of retrieving the micro parameters from captured materials