Computer Graphics

Demystifying Spherical Harmonics: An Optimization Approach

Andrew Helmer teaches spherical harmonics for computer graphics by starting from a familiar engineering problem, approximating a spherical lighting function, and solving it with plain least-squares regression in Python. The result turns out equivalent to L1 and L2 SH, and it exposes the bias and ringing pitfalls of naive SH use.

Tutorial · Computer Graphics · Mathematics · Rendering