Patent ID: 8350932
Filing Date: 2013-01-08
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
1. An image generation device that generates, based on information obtained from a first image of an object regarding a surface structure of a surface of the object, a second image of the object which shows the surface structure in greater detail than the first image, the object of the second image being illuminated by a light source and viewed from a viewpoint, said image generation device comprising: an information obtainment unit configured to obtain position information of the light source, position information of the viewpoint, and geometric normal information regarding the surface structure in the first image; a geometric parameter calculation unit configured to calculate a first geometric parameter corresponding to an angle between a half vector and a geometric normal vector, for each point of the surface corresponding to a pixel in the second image, the half vector being generated by adding a unit vector indicating a direction of the light source with a unit vector indicating a direction of the viewpoint; a high-resolution database unit in which a plurality of second geometric parameters are stored, each of the second geometric parameters indicating a mesostructure of a portion of the surface and having a spatial resolution higher than a spatial resolution of the geometric normal information; an exemplum expansion unit configured to read out the second geometric parameters from said high-resolution database unit, and spatially increase the readout second geometric parameters so that a spatial region indicated by the spatially increased second geometric parameters covers the surface of the object in the second image; a geometric parameter modification unit configured to calculate modified geometric parameters by modifying the first geometric parameters using the spatially increased second geometric parameters; and an image generation unit configured to (i) apply, to a reflection model, the modified geometric parameters, the position information of the light source, the position information of the viewpoint, and the geometric normal information regarding the surface structure, (ii) calculate a pixel value of each point, and (iii) generate the second image showing the mesostructure using the geometric normal information.