Is there anywhere in physics this equation comes from? Is this how materials overlay in the real world, or just an artifact of graphics that's efficiently computable?
This doesn't answer your question directly but it provides a history of the evolution of the "over" operator which is quite interesting. You can also track down the citations for more complete explanations (according to Wikipedia Wallace's version accounts for a physical model)
Prof. Levoy also has a derivation of the "over" operator in his course notes for CS248 back in the day
Is there anywhere in physics this equation comes from? Is this how materials overlay in the real world, or just an artifact of graphics that's efficiently computable?
This doesn't answer your question directly but it provides a history of the evolution of the "over" operator which is quite interesting. You can also track down the citations for more complete explanations (according to Wikipedia Wallace's version accounts for a physical model)
Prof. Levoy also has a derivation of the "over" operator in his course notes for CS248 back in the day