Characterizing Surface Appearance
Instructor: James A. Ferwerda, Rochester Institute of Technology
Level: Intermediate
Duration: 2 hours plus 15 minute break. After the class, adjourn to Zoom to join the instructor and other students in a discussion of the class.
Course Time:
    New York: Monday 9 November, 18:30-20:45
    Paris: Tuesday 10 November, 00:30-02:45
    Tokyo: Tuesday 10 November, 08:30-10:45

Benefits:
Attendees will be able to:

• Identify the factors that contribute to the appearances of complex surfaces.
• Understand the physical bases of surface appearance, and how these bases are measured.
• Learn about the psychophysical methods used to relate the physical and perceptual aspects of surface appearance.
• Distinguish the different systems used to describe and communicate surface appearance.
• Comprehend how computer-graphics and digital imaging techniques are rapidly advancing the state-of-the-art in surface appearance characterization.

Intended Audience: students and professionals who want to understand the physics and psychophysics of surface appearance. The course assumes a basic level understanding of issues in color/imaging science and engineering. All specialized concepts will be introduced in the class.

Course Description:
Surface appearance is of critical importance in a wide variety of fields including design, manufacturing, forensics, medicine, and cultural heritage preservation. In this tutorial I will first introduce a framework for characterizing surface appearance that includes the visual attributes of color, gloss, translucency, and texture. I will then review efforts that have been made to measure these attributes, and describe the psychophysical methods that are used to relate the physical properties of surfaces to their visual appearances. Finally, I will discuss the potential for using computer-graphics techniques to simulate the appearances of complex surfaces, and describe how new digital imaging technologies, are being used to advance the measurement, modeling, visualization, and communication of surface appearance.

James A. Ferwerda is an associate professor and the Xerox Chair in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received a BA in psychology, MS in computer graphics, and a PhD in experimental psychology, all from Cornell University. The focus of his research is on building computational models of human vision from psychophysical experiments and developing advanced imaging systems based on these models.

For office use only: