Wei, M.Song, Z.Nie, Y.Wu, J.Ji, Z.Guo, Y.Xie, H.Wang, J.Wang, F. L.Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, Helwig2020-05-222020-05-2220201467-8659https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.13754https://diglib.eg.org:443/handle/10.1111/cgf13754We present a ear‐ighting hotometric tereo (NL‐PS) system to produce digital bas‐reliefs from a physical object (set) directly. Unlike both the 2D image and 3D model‐based modelling methods that require complicated interactions and transformations, the technique using NL‐PS is easy to use with cost‐effective hardware, providing users with a trade‐off between abstract and representation when creating bas‐reliefs. Our algorithm consists of two steps: normal map acquisition and constrained 3D reconstruction. First, we introduce a lighting model, named the uasi‐oint ighting odel (QPLM), and provide a two‐step calibration solution in our NL‐PS system to generate a dense normal map. Second, we filter the normal map into a and a , and formulate detail‐ or structure‐preserving bas‐relief modelling as a constrained surface reconstruction problem of solving a sparse linear system. The main contribution is a WYSIWYG (i.e. what you see is what you get) way of building new solvers that produces multi‐style bas‐reliefs with their geometric structures and/or details preserved. The performance of our approach is experimentally validated via comparisons with the state‐of‐the‐art methods.compression algorithmsmodellingcomputational geometrycurves and surfaces•Computing methodologies → Shape analysis10.1111/cgf.13754204-219