Parallax Walls: Light fields from occlusion on height fields

We introduce a simple, inexpensively manufacturable, height field surface geometry that, when appropriately painted, can produce diffuse reflections under ambient lighting approximating a target light field. We demonstrate a light field basis analysis of these surfaces which allows us to formulate the problem as a gamut-mapping, and propose a perceptually motivated metric for bringing complex light fields into gamut while preserving their structure. We show resultant surfaces displaying physical light fields, animations, HDR exposure stacks, and scene relighting.