Decoupling BRDFs from Surface Mesostructures

We present a technique for the easy acquisition of realistic materials and mesostructures, without acquiring the actual BRDF. The method uses the observation that under certain circumstances the mesostructure of a surface can be acquired independently of the underlying BRDF. The acquired data can be used directly for rendering with little preprocessing. Rendering is possible using an offline renderer but also using graphics hardware, where it achieves real-time frame rates. Compelling results are achieved for a wide variety of materials.