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Cited by 377

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 15 of the 15 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

On the relationship between radiance and irradiance: determining the illumination from images of a convex Lambertian object

Ramamoorthi, Ravi, Hanrahan, Pat·2001·Journal of the Optical Society of America A

Abstract

We present a theoretical analysis of the relationship between incoming radiance and irradiance. Specifically, we address the question of whether it is possible to compute the incident radiance from knowledge of the irradiance at all surface orientations. This is a fundamental question in computer vision and inverse radiative transfer. We show that the irradiance can be viewed as a simple convolution of the incident illumination, i.e., radiance and a clamped cosine transfer function. Estimating the radiance can then be seen as a deconvolution operation. We derive a simple closed-form formula for the irradiance in terms of spherical harmonic coefficients of the incident illumination and demonstrate that the odd-order modes of the lighting with order greater than 1 are completely annihilated. Therefore these components cannot be estimated from the irradiance, contradicting a theorem that is due to Preisendorfer. A practical realization of the radiance-from-irradiance problem is the estimation of the lighting from images of a homogeneous convex curved Lambertian surface of known geometry under distant illumination, since a Lambertian object reflects light equally in all directions proportional to the irradiance. We briefly discuss practical and physical considerations and describe a simple experimental test to verify our theoretical results.

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Metadata

Authors
Ramamoorthi, R., & Hanrahan, P.
Venue
Journal of the Optical Society of America A
Published
2001-10-01
Volume
18
Issue
10
Pages
2448
ISSN
  • 1084-7529 (ISSN-L)
  • 1520-8532
OpenAlex
W2170464076
Cited by
377
References
15
FWCI
27.30
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: On the relationship between radiance and irradiance: determining the illumination from images of a convex Lambertian object. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1364/josaa.18.002448
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Ramamoorthi, R., & Hanrahan, P. (2001). On the relationship between radiance and irradiance: determining the illumination from images of a convex Lambertian object. Journal of the Optical Society of America A. https://doi.org/10.1364/josaa.18.002448

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