1. A method for determining three dimensional (3D) shape, comprising: capturing with a camera a plurality of images of an object in motion; deriving a general relation that relates spatial and temporal image derivatives to bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) derivatives; with isotropic BRDF ρ, determining image intensity I of a 3D point x, imaged at pixel u, as 
 I ( u,t )=σ( x )ρ( n,x ), where σ is the albedo and n is the surface normal at the point and cosine fall-off is absorbed within ρ and relating I to depth and gradient; exploiting rank deficiency to eliminate BRDF terms and recover depth or normal for directional lighting; and using depth-normal-BRDF relation to recover depth or normal for unknown arbitrary lightings; and determining the 3D shape from the motion.