A traditional method to reconstruct a 3-D shape from shading is to structure an objective functional
Wen Biao Jiang, Hai Yuan Wu, Tadayoshi Shioyama, "Inference of 3-D Shape with Edge from Image Brightness" in Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, 2000, pp 145 - 155, https://doi.org/10.2352/J.ImagingSci.Technol.2000.44.2.art00007