imagebased

Imagebased is an adjective used to describe techniques, methods, or data that are derived primarily from images rather than explicit geometric models. In practice, it is often written as image-based or imagebased in technical literature to emphasize reliance on photographic or synthetic images as the primary source of information.

In computer graphics and visualization, image-based rendering (IBR) refers to approaches that generate novel views of a scene from one or more reference images. Rather than constructing a full 3D model, IBR interpolates, warps, or blends existing images to create new viewpoints. Related techniques include light field rendering and view synthesis from image collections.

Image-based lighting (IBL) uses photographs or environment maps to illuminate a scene, enabling more realistic shading by capturing real-world lighting conditions. Modern engines use HDR environment maps and spherical harmonics or cube maps derived from images.

Image-based methods in computer vision extract information directly from images for tasks such as depth estimation, 3D reconstruction, texture synthesis, and scene understanding. Examples include depth from stereo, photometric stereo, and texture inpainting.

Advantages of image-based approaches include reduced modeling effort, faster prototyping, and faithful reproduction of real-world appearance. Limitations include dependence on image quality, occlusions, limited extrapolation beyond observed views, and potential artifacts at boundaries between reference images.

Applications span entertainment, virtual and augmented reality, digital archiving, architectural visualization, and product photography. The term imagebased is also used in branding or software naming to denote image-focused workflows.