Impact of Shape on Apparent Translucency Differences

Translucency is one of the major appearance attributes. Apparent translucency is impacted by various factors including object shape and geometry. Despite general proposals that object shape and geometry have a significant effect on apparent translucency, no quantification has been made so far. Quantifying and modeling the impact of geometry, as well as comprehensive understanding of the translucency perception process, are a point of not only academic, but also industrial interest with 3D printing as an example among many. We hypothesize that a presence of thin areas in the object facilitates material translucency estimation and changes in material properties have larger impact on apparent translucency of the objects with thin areas. Computer generated images of objects with various geometry and thickness have been used for a psychophysical experiment in order to quantify apparent translucency difference between objects while varying material absorption and scattering properties. Finally, absorption and scattering difference thresholds where the human visual system starts perceiving translucency difference need to be identified and its consistency needs to be analyzed across different shapes and geometries.