Specular Reflection - Direction of Reflection

Direction of Reflection

The direction of a reflected ray is determined by the vector of incidence and the surface normal vector. Given an incident direction from the surface to the light source and the surface normal direction the specularly reflected direction (all unit vectors) is:

where is a scalar obtained with the dot product. Different authors may define the incident and reflection directions with different signs. Assuming these Euclidean vectors are represented in column form, the equation can be equivalently expressed as a matrix-vector multiplication:

where is the so-called Householder transformation matrix, defined as:

denotes transposition and is the identity matrix.

Read more about this topic:  Specular Reflection

Famous quotes containing the words direction of, direction and/or reflection:

    Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
    A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Virtuous people are simply those who have ... not been tempted sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the leisure to glance around them.
    Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)

    Public morning diversions were the last dissipating habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her time was squandered away, the power of reflection was lost, [and] her ideas were all centered in dress, drums, routs, operas, masquerades, and every kind of public diversion. Visionary schemes of pleasure were continually present to her imagination, and her brain was whirled about by such a dizziness that she might properly be said to labor under the distemper called the vertigo.
    Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)