ImpastoR: A realistic surface display system

•We develop a surface display system that simulates real-world surface appearance.•The simulated surfaces can have complex color, gloss, and texture properties.•They can appear in real-world lighting environments.•Users can manipulate the simulated surfaces as naturally as if they were real ones.•We explain system design, capabilities, fidelity, and applications.

In this paper we describe our efforts to create a surface display system that produces realistic representations of real-world surfaces. Our system, based on a desktop PC with GPU hardware, LCD display, light and position sensors, and custom graphics software, supports the photometrically accurate and visually realistic real-time simulation and display of surfaces with complex color, gloss, and textural properties in real-world lighting environments, and allows users to interact with and manipulate these virtual surfaces as naturally as if they were real ones. We explain the system design, illustrate its capabilities, describe experiments we conducted to validate its fidelity, and discuss potential applications in material appearance research and computer-aided appearance design.