Parallax Walls: Light fields from occlusion on height fields

• We introduce a simple new surface geometry to display static light fields.
• We show further applications to reflectance fields, HDR display, and animation.
• We introduce a gamut-analysis applicable to other geometries.
• We introduce a perceptual optimization for compressing light fields into gamut.

We introduce a simple, inexpensively manufacturable, height field surface geometry that, when appropriately painted, can produce diffuse reflections under ambient lighting approximating a target light field. We demonstrate a light field basis analysis of these surfaces which allows us to formulate the problem as a gamut-mapping, and propose a perceptually motivated metric for bringing complex light fields into gamut while preserving their structure. We show resultant surfaces displaying physical light fields, animations, HDR exposure stacks, and scene relighting.

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