Interactive relighting of panoramas

We have developed an interactive image-based panorama viewer that incorporates illumination information for re-lighting. Our panoramic image representation lets users incorporate the illumination information into the panorama and to interactively adjust the lighting conditions. We propose a concept of an apparent pixel bidirectional reflectance distribution function (pBRDF) to represent the outgoing radiance distribution passing through the pixel window on the image plane. By treating each image pixel as an ordinary surface element, we can record its radiance distribution under various illumination conditions in a table. If we incorporate this table into the panoramic image data structure, we can re-light the image. Our interactive panorama viewer allows panning, tilting and zooming, as well as modifying the modeled environment's lighting conditions.