Industry standard methods for measuring appearance are applied to realistic image synthesis. Two appearance attributes, gloss and haze, are known to be determined by the shape of the specular reflection lobe. Standards which specify the measurement of these two geometric appearance attributes are used to select BRDF model parameters for a number of computer graphics reflection models. The bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of metallic and pearlescent paints can be characterized with only a few industry standard specular measurements. Using these measurements, a new computer graphics BRDF model is developed.

The Beard-Maxwell BRDF model, which utilizes a systematic measurement protocol to determine appropriate model parameter values, is presented. An associated database containing parameters for hundreds of measured surfaces, is overviewed. Also, a new method of Monte Carlo importance sampling is described which allows importance sampling of arbitrary BRDFs.