A standardised polarisation visualisation for images

Abstract

We discuss issues surrounding the visualisation of the polarisation properties of light stored in the pixels of an image. In order to facilitate comparisons between the work of different researchers, and in order to aid the development and debugging of polarisation-capable rendering systems, we propose a set of four standardised, easily comprehensible visualisations. These cover all aspects of polarisation that are relevant for rendering research, but also for optical design tasks. However, the so-called luminance scaled overlay form of the proposed visualisations is conceivably also useful and instructive to a wider, non-technical audience, and can be used for educational purposes.