Napa Valley - HDR image used as lighting source for the renderings on this page; Click to view larger version (LDR)!

Merging real and CG worlds seamlessly is a challenging task.

The concept of using real-world photographic images to illuminate CG objects - image-based lighting - has proven to be one of the most promising approaches toward this goal. Today, most rendering software implements image-based lighting by using full spherical and High Dynamic Range images as lighting sources.

What is High Dynamic Range imaging?

High Dynamic Range imaging is, first of all, about not losing information when capturing an image: If an object in an image is a million times brighter than another object, then its pixel values should be a million times higher, and not just 255.

High Dyanmic Range imaging means measuring the real world luminosity as it is, without clipping of pixels or bleaching of regions within the image. Information loss is avoided during capture because the dynamic range of the SpheroCam HDR is larger than the dynamic range of the scene.

Full spherical HDRi completes the idea of an accurate measurement process by providing the high dynamic range information in every direction around the camera location.

Capture real-world luminosity with the SpheroCam HDR and bring real light into your scene!

SpheroCam HDR

SpheroCam HDR - Benefits

• single scan, full spherical High Dynamic Range capturing
• 26 f-stops dynamic range
• no bracketing of multiple exposures
• no stitching of individual images
• complete control through a laptop computer for preview and storage
• real-time preview during capture ensures the best image the first time

SpheronVR has developed the SpheroCam HDR from the ground up for taking outstanding full-spherical High-Dynamic Range images. The system captures incident real-world radiance over the full sphere in a single pass and stores the image data in one of several widely accepted file formats. The high resolution gives plenty of detailed structure for reflection mapping and background shots as well.

Villa - rendered with Mental Ray by the AG Heinrich the working group for Numerical Algorithms from the University of Kaiserslautern

Capturing full spherical HDR images with the SpheroCam HDR is very simple and efficient: set up the camera, record the light distribution in a single scan and save it as a raw file in highest resolution. Use the built-in post processing engine to generate the desired HDR output.

Setting up the equipment and preparing for the final capture only takes a few minutes. In a typical lighting situation a complete 360° x 180° HDR scan  takes less than 3 minutes.

The examples on top of this page show HDR lighting compared to conventional lighting. The panoramic HDR image has been captured with the SpheroCam HDR and has been used for lighting. Please click on the images to see a larger version of the image.