Basic HTML version of Foils prepared March 4 1998

Foil 157 Shading and Normals

From VRML 2 Basic Concepts and Definitions CPS616 -- Information Track of CPS -- Spring Semester 98. by Zeynep Ozdemir, Rob Baker, Meryem Ispirli, Geoffrey C. Fox


1 The brightness of a face in VRML shape depends on how much it is lit by light in the VRML world. The more a face is oriented toward a light, the more brightly it is shaded by the VRML browser.
  • Surface normal determines the orientation of the surface.
2 VRML browser measures the angle between the light rays and the normal of the surface and calculates the shading of that surface.
3 It is also possible to provide the surface normals so that the browser does not spend time to calculate them.
4 IndexedFaceSet and ElevationGrid node have a normal field. By using a Normal node, it is possible to define these surface normals
  • Normal {
  • vector [] # exposedField MFVec3f
  • }
5 vector field specifies a list of unit normal vectors that may be used as normals for a shape.

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