Skin color modeling using the radiative transfer equation solved by the auxiliary function method.

The auxiliary function method is an efficient technique for solving the radiative tranfer equation without adding any assumption and was applied until now only for theoretical stratified media. The first application (to our knowledge) of the method to a real case, the human skin, is presented. This makes it possible to validate the method by comparing model results with experimental reflectance spectra of real skin. An excellent agreement is obtained for a multilayer model of the skin made of 22 sublayers and taking into account the anisotropic phase function of the scatterers. Thus there is the opportunity to develop interest in such models by quantitatively evaluating the influence of the parameters commonly used in the literature that modify skin color, such as the concentration of the scatterers and the thickness of each sublayer.