Reflectance Paper' Can Reflect Light Like Physical Object

A novel printing method yields photos that respond to different angles of light the same way a three-dimensional object does. The technique, which uses specially designed 'reflectance paper' covered with thousands of tiny dimples, was developed by a team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, and 3M. "With the reflectance paper, for each pixel we have a little dimple that has all angular directions on its surface. Now we can print ink over it in a way that controls the angles of light that will be reflected from each pixel," explains James Davis, an associate professor of computer science at UCSC.

Transcript

00:00:04 in the real world objects reflect light differently depending on which angle the light comes from photos of objects don't flat paper can't reflect light the way 3D objects can would if printed photos could capture the rich reflections of the real world introducing reflectance paper with thousands of dimples it can reflect light with all the variety of a real

00:00:27 object the placement of Ink on each dimple determines which angles reflect light dimples on the left side of the face reflect light coming from the left but do not reflect light coming from the right this technique allows us to create prints on reflectance paper which respond to light the same way a physical object does for more details please see our website graphics. so. ucsc.edu

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