{"id":1721,"date":"2025-10-27T10:23:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T09:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/?p=1721"},"modified":"2025-11-11T10:43:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T09:43:03","slug":"seeing-through-glaze-how-craeft-teaches-light-to-behave-like-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/seeing-through-glaze-how-craeft-teaches-light-to-behave-like-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Through Glaze: how Craeft teaches light to behave like matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Glaze, a thin, glassy film, acts as the skin of ceramics. It transforms fired clay, bringing it to life with a luminous quality.<\/p>

For a craftsperson, the glaze is a medium of intuition: it runs, pools, and melts in unpredictable ways. From a scientific perspective, it presents a physics challenge: a transparent layer where light undergoes refraction, reflection, and scattering due to microscopic irregularities.<\/p>

Capturing that duality is one of the most demanding tasks in digitisation.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The problem of glazing: beauty and complexity in one layer<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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In craft practice, glaze embodies depth: a thin surface that behaves like a volume. The optical characteristics are determined by the minerals present, the firing temperature, and the cooling rate. These specific details are difficult to articulate and even more challenging to replicate digitally.<\/p>

When a glazed artefact is scanned, the camera sees a shifting mixture of transparency, reflection, and colour bleeding from the clay beneath. Conventional 3D digitisation often fails here, flattening the glaze into a dull shine.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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How Craeft models light as the craftsperson experiences it<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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To overcome this, Craeft employs Physically Based Rendering (PBR), a simulation method that treats light as a measurable material interaction rather than a visual effect.<\/p>

Using data from high-resolution surface scanning and optical analysis, PBR models how photons pass through the glaze, bounce at interfaces, and blur into subsurface colour \u2014 the same way our eyes perceive depth and lustre.<\/p>

In this way, rendering becomes a tool of understanding: it reveals how texture, transparency, and microgeometry give rise to the glaze\u2019s signature glow.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Surface and glaze under light. Comparison between a macro photograph of a real glazed ceramic surface (left) and a digitally rendered counterpart using Craeft\u2019s physically based rendering pipeline (right). The alignment of reflections and colour depth demonstrates the fidelity of digital light transport to real optical behaviour.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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When appearance becomes knowledge<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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For practitioners, this technology allows digital previews of how different glazing recipes will appear under various lighting conditions \u2014 without firing a single kiln.<\/p>

For researchers, the rendered output becomes a validation layer: when simulation and real-world photography agree, it confirms that the physical and perceptual models are correct.<\/p>

In training environments, the same rendering engine powers immersive lessons in glass and ceramics, letting learners explore how small changes in composition or temperature alter reflectance and transparency.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Split image showing a computer interface for virtual glazing on the left and a male artisan hand-applying glaze to a ceramic bowl on the right, illustrating the link between digital simulation and manual craft practice.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Light as heritage<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Glazing has always been a meeting point of chemistry, art, and light. In Craeft, this meeting is extended into the digital domain \u2014 preserving not only the shapes of artefacts but their radiance.<\/p>

By teaching computers to \u201csee through glaze\u201d, we preserve a form of visual knowledge that once lived only in the eye of the maker.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Rendered vs real artefact. Side-by-side comparison of a real glazed ceramic bowl (left) and its digital twin rendered through Craeft\u2019s physically based rendering system (right). Matching viewpoint and illumination reveals close correspondence between physical and simulated optics.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Visualisations that capture light scattering due to glaze enable the refinement of textures digitally before committing to costly or time-consuming physical trials. Moreover, some glazes contain hazardous materials, requiring cautious handling. Simulating these glazes digitally helps artists to achieve desired aesthetics without using toxic materials in the testing phase, promoting safety and environmental sustainability.<\/p>

Beyond reproducing the optical behaviour of a single glaze, Craeft\u2019s physically based rendering approach allows the systematic comparison of different surface treatments and materials. By altering parameters such as surface roughness, refractive index, and pigment absorption, we can visualise how the same ceramic form transforms under distinct glazing conditions.<\/p>

The image below illustrates this range \u2014 from raw to glazed clay, from matte to glossy porcelain, and from neutral to tinted glazes \u2014 showing how subtle physical variations generate markedly different visual impressions.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A composite image showing digitally rendered ceramic plates with varying surface finishes. The top row compares materials: plastic, unglazed clay, and glazed clay, highlighting differences in reflection and texture. The middle row displays porcelain plates with matte and glossy finishes, showing variations in light diffusion and specular highlights. The bottom row depicts plates with tinted or coloured glazes, demonstrating how glaze pigmentation alters the visual depth and warmth of the surface.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glaze, a thin, glassy film, acts as the skin of ceramics. It transforms fired clay, bringing it to life with a luminous quality. For a craftsperson, the glaze is a medium of intuition: it runs, pools, and melts in unpredictable ways. From a scientific perspective, it presents a physics challenge: a transparent layer where light […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":1740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,6,5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authenticity-and-safeguard","category-documentation-and-archiving","category-economics-and-innovative-business-models","category-transmission-training-self-improvement-learning-processes-and-certification","category-understanding-and-valorisation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1721"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1736,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721\/revisions\/1736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.madineurope.eu\/craeft-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}