Using Shadows in Finding Surface Orientations

Abstract

Given a line drawing from an image with shadow regions identified, the shapes of the shadows can be used to generate constraints on the orientations of the surfaces involved. This paper describes the theory which governs those constraints under orthography. A “Basic Shadow Problem” is first posed, in which there is a single light source, and a single surface casts a shadow on another (background) surface. There are six parameters to determine: the orientation (two parameters) for each surface, and the direction of the vector (two parameters) pointing at the light source. If some set of three of these are given in advance, the remaining three can then be determined geometrically. The solution method consists of identifying “illumination surfaces” consisting of illumination vectors, assigning Huffman-Clowes line labels to their edges, and applying the corresponding constraints in gradient space. The analysis is extended to shadows cast by polyhedra and curved surfaces. In both cases, the constraints provided by shadows can be analyzed in a manner analogous to the Basic shadow Problem. When the shadow falls upon a polyhedron or curved surface, similar techniques apply. The consequences of varying the position and number of light sources are also discussed. Finally, some methods are presented for combining shadow geometry with other gradient space techniques for 3D shape inference.