This paper presents a new method of numerical solution of the integral equation for the radiance reflected from an anisotropic surface. The equation relates the radiance at the surface level with BRDF and solutions of the standard radiative transfer problems for a slab with no reflection on its surfaces. It is also shown that the kernel of the equation satisfies the condition of existence of a unique solution and converges of the successive approximations to that solution. The developed method features two basic steps: discretization on a 2D quadrature and solving the resulting system of algebraic equations with successive over-relaxation method based on Gauss - Seidel iterative process. Presented numerical examples show good coincidence between the surface reflected radiance obtained with DISORT and proposed method. Analysis of contributions of the direct and diffuse (but not yet reflected) parts of the downward radiance to the total solution is performed. Together, they represent a very good initial guess for the iterative process. This fact ensures fast convergence. The numerical evidence is given that the fastest convergence occurs with the relaxation parameter of 1 (no relaxation). An integral equation for BRDF is derived as inversion of the original equation. The potential of this new equation for BRDF retrievals is analyzed. The approach is found not viable as the BRDF equation appears to be an ill-posed problem and it requires the knowledge the surface reflected radiance on the entire domain of both Sun and viewing zenith angles.
Keywords: BRDF; discrete ordinates method; radiance; successive over-relaxation; surface reflection.