Mixing material modes

We present a novel setup in which real objects made of different materials can be mixed optically. For the materials we chose mutually very different materials, which we assume to represent canonical modes. The appearance of 3D objects consisting of any material can be described as linear superposition of 3D objects of different canonical...

Perceptual qualities of optically mixed materials (extended abstract)

We present a novel setup in which real objects made of two different materials can be mixed optically in a linearly weighted manner. We conducted a psychophysical experiment in which observers rated optical mixtures of the three combinations of glossy, matte, and velvety green birds. The observers rated the materials on four scales: matte-glossy...

Space perception in pictures

A "picture" is a at object covered with pigments in a certain pattern. Human observers, when looking "into" a picture (photograph, painting, drawing, . . . say) often report to experience a three dimensional "pictorial space." This space is a mental entity, apparently triggered by so called pictorial cues. The latter are sub-structures of color...

Vision as a user interface

The egg-rolling behavior of the graylag goose is an often quoted example of a fixed-action pattern. The bird will even attempt to roll a brick back to its nest! Despite excellent visual acuity it apparently "takes a brick for an egg." Evolution optimizes utility, not veridicality. Yet textbooks take it for a fact that human vision evolved so as...

Pictorial relief for equiluminant images

Pictorial relief depends strongly on “cues” in the image. For isoluminant renderings some cues are missing, namely all information that is related to luminance contrast (e.g., shading, atmospheric perspective). It has been suggested that spatial discrimination and especially pictorial space suffer badly in isoluminant conditions. We have...