A generic real-time rendering approach for structural colors

Abstract

Colors in nature can be classified into two categories: pigment colors and structural colors. Structural colors, which are caused by optical path differences of reflected rays in microstructures, change depending on viewing angle and lighting conditions. In the present paper, we propose a generic approach for rendering structural colors in real-time. The proposed method uses optical path differences as common parameters to allow unified treatment of various types of microstructures, such as thin films, multilayer films, and diffraction gratings. To achieve real-time rendering, we store pre-computed information related to specific microstructure and lighting conditions on several kinds of textures. The textures are used as a look-up table in the rendering process. The proposed method can be applied to objects that have arbitrary shape and enables rendering from any viewing direction and under any lighting conditions.