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High Dynamic Range Image rendering of color in chameleons' camouflage using optical thin films

2008; SPIE; Volume: 7057; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1117/12.802177

1996-756X

Mark J. Prusten,

Image Enhancement Techniques

High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) rendering and animation of color in the camouflage of chameleons is developed utilizing thin film optics. Chameleons are a lizard species, and have the ability to change their skin color. This change in color is an expression of the physical and physiological conditions of the lizard, and plays a part in communication. The different colors that can be produced depending on the species include pink, blue, red, orange, green, black, brown and yellow. The modeling, simulation, and rendering of the color, which their skin incorporates, thin film optical stacks. The skin of a chameleon has four layers, which together produce various colors. The outside transparent layer has chromatophores cells, of two kinds of color, yellow and red. Next there are two more layers that reflect light: one blue and the other white. The innermost layer contains dark pigment granules or melanophore cells that influences the amount of reflected light. All of these pigment cells can rapidly relocate their pigments, thereby influencing the color of the chameleon. Techniques like subsurface scattering, the simulation of volumetric scattering of light underneath the objects surface, and final gathering are defined in custom shaders and material phenomena for the renderer. The workflow developed to model the chameleon's skin is also applied to simulation and rendering of hair and fur camouflage, which does not exist in nature.