Surface texture in the context of "Gloss (material appearance)"

A shape is a graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external surface. It is distinct from other object properties, such as color, texture, or material type.In geometry, shape excludes information about the object's position, size, orientation and chirality.A figure is a representation including both shape and size (as in, e.g., figure of the Earth).

A plane shape or plane figure is constrained to lie on a plane, in contrast to solid 3D shapes.A two-dimensional shape or two-dimensional figure (also: 2D shape or 2D figure) may lie on a more general curved surface (a two-dimensional space).

A fractal landscape or fractal surface is generated using a stochastic algorithm designed to produce fractal behavior that mimics the appearance of natural terrain. In other words, the surface resulting from the procedure is not a deterministic, but rather a random surface that exhibits fractal behavior.

Many natural phenomena exhibit some form of statistical self-similarity that can be modeled by fractal surfaces. Moreover, variations in surface texture provide important visual cues to the orientation and slopes of surfaces, and the use of almost self-similar fractal patterns can help create natural looking visual effects.The modeling of the Earth's rough surfaces via fractional Brownian motion was first proposed by Benoit Mandelbrot.

Gloss is an optical property which indicates how well a surface reflects light in a specular (mirror-like) direction. It is one of the important parameters that are used to describe the visual appearance of an object. Other categories of visual appearance related to the perception of regular or diffuse reflection and transmission of light have been organized under the concept of cesia in an order system with three variables, including gloss among the involved aspects. The factors that affect gloss are the refractive index of the material, the angle of incident light and the surface texture.

Apparent gloss depends on the amount of specular reflection – light reflected from the surface in an equal amount and the symmetrical angle to the one of incoming light – in comparison with diffuse reflection – the amount of light scattered into other directions.