We introduce a novel method for view-independent diffuse-specular separation of albedo and photometric normals without
requiring polarization using binary spherical gradient illumination. The key idea is that with binary gradient illumination, a
dielectric surface oriented towards the dark hemisphere exhibits pure diffuse reflectance while a surface oriented towards the
bright hemisphere exhibits both diffuse and specular reflectance. We exploit this observation to formulate diffuse-specular separation
based on color-space analysis of a surface’s response to binary spherical gradients and their complements. The method
does not impose restrictions on viewpoints and requires fewer photographs for multiview acquisition than polarized spherical
gradient illumination. We further demonstrate an efficient two-shot capture using spectral multiplexing of the illumination that
enables diffuse-specular separation of albedo and heuristic separation of photometric normals.