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Abstract

Simulating the light transport on biological tissues is a longstanding challenge, given its complex multilayered structure. In biology, one of the most remarkable and studied examples of tissues are the scales that cover the skin of reptiles, which present a combination of photonic structures and pigmentation. This is, however, a somewhat ignored problem in computer graphics. In this work, we propose a multilayered appearance model based on the anatomy of the snake skin. Some snakes are known for their striking, highly iridescent scales resulting from light interference. We model snake skin as a two-layered reflectance function: The top layer is a thin layer resulting on a specular iridescent reflection, while the bottom layer is a diffuse highly-absorbing layer, that results into a dark diffuse appearance that maximizes the iridescent color of the skin. We demonstrate our layered material on a wide range of appearances, and show that our model is able to qualitatively match the appearance of snake skin.

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Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 956585 (PRIME). The work was also partially funded by MCIN/AEI 10.13039/501100011033 through Project PID2019-105004GB-I00. We would like to thank Dario Lanza for the help with the figures.