Recreating Early Islamic Glass Lamp Lighting

10th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, 2009

Joseph T. Kider Jr. 1, Rebecca L. Fletcher1, Nancy Yu1, Renata Holod2, Alan Chalmers3, and Norman I. Badler1



1 SIG Center for Computer Graphics, University of Pennsylvania
2 Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania
3 International Digital Laboratory, WMG, University of Warwick
 
Using our "Caustic Cones" method we synthesize a more perceptually valid representation
of the Mosque of Cordoba, Spain (left) by accurately modeling the downward caustic
pattern cast by early Islamic light s sources.
 
Abstract
Early Islamic light sources are not simple, static, uniform points, and the fixtures themselves are often combinations of glass, water, fuel and flame. Various physically based renderers such as Radiance are widely used for modeling ancient architectural scenes; however they rarely capture the true ambiance of the environment due to subtle lighting effects. Specifically, these renderers often fail to correctly model complex caustics produced by glass fixtures, water level, and fuel sources. While the original fixtures of the 8th through 10th century Mosque of Cordoba in Spain have not survived, we have applied information gathered from earlier and contemporary sites and artifacts, including those from Byzantium, to assume that it was illuminated by either single jar lamps or supported by polycandela that cast unique downward caustic lighting patterns which helped individuals to navigate and to read. To re-synthesize such lighting, we gathered experimental archaeological data and investigated and validated how various water levels and glass fixture shapes, likely used during early Islamic times, changed the overall light patterns and downward caustics. In this paper, we propose a technique called Caustic Cones, a novel data-driven method to 'shape' the light emanating from the lamps to better recreate the downward lighting without resorting to computationally expensive photon mapping renderers. Additionally, we demonstrate on a rendering of the Mosque of Cordoba how our approach greatly benefits archaeologists and architectural historians by providing a more authentic visual simulation of early Islamic glass lamp lighting.
 
Paper
PDF[1.21 MB]
 
Video
WMV [16M]       QUICKTIME [246MB]
 
Flame Data
 
Extended Result Videos
Test1 WMV [1.13M]       Test1 WMV [1.14M]       Cordoba WMV [4.93M]      
 
BibTex
@inproceedings{IslamicLighting09,
author = {Joseph Kider and Rebecca Fletcher and Nancy Yu and Renata Holod and Alan Chalmers and Norm Badler},
title = {Recreating Early Islamic Glass Lamp Lighting},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2009 ACM/Eurographics International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage},
year = {2009},
}