Diffuse objects generally tell us little about the surround-

ing lighting, since the radiance they reflect blurs together

incident lighting many directions. In this paper we

discuss how occlusion geometry can help invert diffuse

reflectance to recover lighting or surface albedo. Self-

occlusion in the scene can be regarded as a form of coding,

creating high frequencies that improve the conditioning of

diffuse light transport. Our analysis builds on a basic obser-

vation that diffuse reflectors with sufficiently detailed geome-

try can fully resolve the incident lighting-Diffuse objects generally tell us little about the surround-

ing lighting, since the radiance they reflect blurs together

incident lighting　many directions. In this paper we

discuss how occlusion geometry can help invert diffuse

reflectance to recover lighting or surface albedo. Self-

occlusion in the scene can be regarded as a form of coding,

creating high frequencies that improve the conditioning of

diffuse light transport. Our analysis builds on a basic obser-

vation that diffuse reflectors with sufficiently detailed geome-

try can fully resolve the incident lighting