This research investigation used digital photography in a hemispherical dome, enabling a set of 64 photographic images of an object to be captured in perfect pixel register, with each image illuminated from a different direction. This representation turns out to be much richer than a single 2D image, because it contains information at each point about both the 3D shape of the surface (gradient and local curvature) and the directionality of reflectance (gloss and specularity). Thereby it enables not only interactive visualisation through viewer software, giving the illusion of 3D, but also the reconstruction of an actual 3D surface and highly realistic rendering of a wide range of materials. The following seven outcomes of the research are claimed as novel and therefore as representing contributions to knowledge in the field: A method for determining the geometry of an illumination dome; An adaptive method for finding surface normals by bounded regression; Generating 3D surfaces from photometric stereo; Relationship between surface normals and specular angles; Modelling surface specularity by a modified Lorentzian function; Determining the optimal wavelengths of colour laser scanners; Characterising colour devices by synthetic reflectance spectra
