Generating plausible hairstyles is a very challenging problem. Despite recent efforts no definite solution was presented so far. Many of the current limitations are related to the optical complexity of hair. In this paper we present a technique for hair reconstruction based on thermal imaging. By using this technique several issues of conventional image-based techniques, such as shadowing and anisotropy in reflectance, can be avoided. Moreover, hair-skin segmentation becomes a trivial problem, and no special care about lighting has to be taken, as the hair is "lit from inside" with the head as light source. The capture process is fast and requires a single hand-held device only. The potential of the proposed method is demonstrated by several challenging examples.

The reconstruction of hairstyles is one of the most challenging tasks in the field of hair modeling.

In this work a practical approach to photometric acquisition of hair color is presented. Based on a single input photograph of a simple setup we are able to extract physically plausible optical properties of hair and to render virtual hair closely matching the original. Our approach does not require any costly special hardware but a standard consumer camera only.