This book presents the latest advances in photometric 3D reconstruction. It provides the reader with an overview of the state of the art in the field, and of the latest research into both the theoretical foundations of photometric 3D reconstruction and its practical application in several fields (including security, medicine, cultural heritage and archiving, and engineering). These techniques play a crucial role within such emerging technologies as 3D printing, since they permit the direct conversion of an image into a solid object. 

The book covers both theoretical analysis and real-world applications, highlighting the importance of deepening interdisciplinary skills, and as such will be of interest to both academic researchers and practitioners from the computer vision and mathematical 3D modeling communities, as well as engineers involved in 3D printing. No prior background is required beyond a general knowledge of classical computer vision models, numerical methods for optimization, and partial differential equations.