A Matlab/Octave package for photometric stereo 3D reconstruction
Abstract
The photometric stereo model allows the construction of 3D virtual replicas of real objects from images acquired under different light conditions. The assumptions of this model are strongly restrictive and are seldom fully satisfied in applications. Indeed, the surface of the observed objects may deviate from ideal conditions, and the geometry of the scene is often only an approximation of the one assumed by the model. Additionally, real-world surfaces may present reflection phenomena, which introduce distortions in reconstructions. In this paper, we present a revised version of the Matlab package \ttt{\small ps3d}~\cite{cdfrv21}, developed to implement the photometric stereo model under various conditions. The new package contains various extensions, the most notable one is the presence of an alternative model to address the presence of a reflective object surface. In addition, it implements particular metrics to analyze the compliance of a dataset to model assumptions, and it is compatible with GNU Octave. The tool allows users to test the model under different observation configurations, also in presence of reflection, using either synthetic or experimental data.
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BibTeX
@misc{buccini2026matlaboctave,
title = {{A Matlab/Octave package for photometric stereo 3D reconstruction}},
author = {Alessandro Buccini and Elisa Crabu and Federica Pes and Giuseppe Rodriguez},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.26162},
eprint = {2610.26162},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26162},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Matlab/Octave package for photometric stereo 3D reconstruction
AU - Alessandro Buccini
AU - Elisa Crabu
AU - Federica Pes
AU - Giuseppe Rodriguez
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.26162
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26162
AB - The photometric stereo model allows the construction of 3D virtual replicas of real objects from images acquired under different light conditions. The assumptions of this model are strongly restrictive and are seldom fully satisfied in applications. Indeed, the surface of the observed objects may deviate from ideal conditions, and the geometry of the scene is often only an approximation of the one assumed by the model. Additionally, real-world surfaces may present reflection phenomena, which introduce distortions in reconstructions. In this paper, we present a revised version of the Matlab package \ttt{\small ps3d}~\cite{cdfrv21}, developed to implement the photometric stereo model under various conditions. The new package contains various extensions, the most notable one is the presence of an alternative model to address the presence of a reflective object surface. In addition, it implements particular metrics to analyze the compliance of a dataset to model assumptions, and it is compatible with GNU Octave. The tool allows users to test the model under different observation configurations, also in presence of reflection, using either synthetic or experimental data.
ER -