MONOCULAR IMAGING SYSTEMS:

Monocular imaging refers to capturing visual information using a

single camera or one viewpoint just like how one eye works.
Unlike stereo or binocular vision systems, which use two or more
cameras to perceive depth through triangulation, a monocular
system relies entirely on a single viewpoint to interpret the scene.
This approach mimics how one human eye views the world
independently. While it lacks the direct depth perception afforded
by multiple viewpoints, it compensates by using visual cues and
computational methods to infer three dimensional information
from a two dimensional image.

Monocular Image Formation:

In image processing and computer vision, the monocular image
captured is modeled based on radiometric principles:

●​ Radiance: Light leaving a surface​

●​ Irradiance: Light arriving at the sensor​

●​ BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function):

Describes how light is reflected at an opaque surface​

●​ Radiosity: The total energy leaving a surface (used in

rendering)
Monocular vision systems operate based on a combination of
geometric projections and radiometric principles. The physical
process of image formation involves the interaction of light with
surfaces in the scene, where light reflects off objects and is
captured by the camera’s image sensor. The quantity and quality
of the light depend on properties such as radiance (light leaving a
surface), irradiance (light falling on the sensor), and BRDF the
Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function which
mathematically describes how light is reflected at an opaque
surface. These principles help form a radiometrically accurate
image, which can later be analyzed by image processing
algorithms.

RADIOSITY:
Radiosity is a fundamental concept in the physics of image
formation, especially within the fields of computer graphics,
architectural rendering, and visual simulation. It refers to the total
amount of radiant energy leaving a surface per unit area,
including both emitted and reflected light. While related to
radiance and irradiance, radiosity focuses specifically on energy
exchange between surfaces in a scene and is often used in
scenarios involving diffuse interreflection, where light bounces
between surfaces multiple times before reaching the camera. The
goal of radiosity methods is to accurately model how light
distributes itself across an entire environment, accounting for how
surfaces illuminate each other.

Physically, radiosity is measured in watts per square meter

(W/m²) and depends not only on the light directly emitted by a
surface (like a lamp or display screen) but also on the light
reflected from other surfaces. This makes it particularly important
in closed environments like rooms, where light bounces between
walls, ceilings, and floors, creating soft, indirect illumination. In
such settings, the visual appearance of a point on a surface is not
just influenced by the direct light it receives from a source but also
by the indirect contributions from neighboring surfaces and
radiosity aims to capture this total outgoing energy.
RADIANCE:

Radiance is a fundamental concept in the physics of image

formation and radiometry. It refers to the amount of light energy
(or electromagnetic radiation) leaving a surface in a specific
direction, per unit area, per unit solid angle. It is a measure of how
bright a surface appears when viewed from a particular angle and
is denoted in units of watts per square meter per steradian
(W/m²/sr).
Radiance is conserved along a ray in the absence of participating
media (like fog or smoke), making it especially important in
computer graphics and vision because it describes how much
light travels from a point on a surface toward the camera or eye.
When you take a photograph, the camera essentially records the
radiance from all visible surfaces within its field of view.

IRRADIANCE:

Irradiance describes the amount of light energy arriving at or

falling onto a surface, without regard to direction. It is the total
power received per unit area, measured in watts per square meter
(W/m²). Irradiance quantifies how much light is incident on a
surface, whether it's from the sun, a lamp, or another source.
Unlike radiance, which is directional, irradiance is integrated over
all directions from which light arrives. In imaging systems, the
irradiance at the sensor’s surface—after passing through the lens
and possibly a filter—is what ultimately generates the electronic
signal that becomes an image.
The distinction between these two terms is crucial. Radiance is
about light leaving a point, typically from the scene toward the
camera, while irradiance is about light arriving at a point,
usually at the camera sensor or an object being illuminated. In the
context of a monocular imaging system, understanding both
quantities is essential. When light reflects off objects in the scene,
the radiance from those objects determines how they appear to
the camera. The sensor inside the camera then receives this light,
and the amount of energy it collects is described by irradiance.
The camera sensor integrates this irradiance over time (exposure)
to form pixel values in the resulting image.

BRDF(Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function):

The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) is

a core concept in radiometry and computer vision that describes
how light is reflected at an opaque surface. Specifically, the BRDF
defines the relationship between the incoming light direction and
the outgoing (reflected) light direction at a given point on a
surface. It essentially tells us how much of the incoming light from
a specific direction is reflected toward a specific outgoing
direction. This relationship is critical in understanding how objects
appear under various lighting conditions and is foundational in
physically-based rendering, remote sensing, and photometric
analysis.
Mathematically, the BRDF is a four-dimensional function, denoted
as:
BRDF is defined as the ratio of the reflected radiance in the
outgoing direction to the incident irradiance from the incoming
direction. It captures the anisotropic and directional behavior of
surface reflection.

In the context of a monocular imaging system, the BRDF plays

a crucial role in determining how surfaces appear in an image.
Since a single camera only captures the radiance reflected toward
it from each visible surface point, it sees only a slice of the full
BRDF—namely, the radiance in the viewing direction resulting
from light in all possible incident directions. Understanding or
estimating the BRDF is vital for applications like material
recognition, inverse rendering (recovering scene properties from
images), and photometric stereo, where the shape and
reflectance of objects are inferred from how they reflect light
under different conditions.
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