Further reading

Angel, section 1.4

Glassner, Principles of Digital Image Synthesis, sections

1.1-1.6.

Spencer, Shirley, Zimmerman, and Greenberg.

1. Visual perception Physically-based glare effects for digital images.
SIGGRAPH 95.

Ferwerda, Pattanik, Shirley, and Greenberg. A model

of visual adaptation for realistic image synthesis.
SIGGRAPH 96.

Forming an image Restricting the light

First, we need some sort of sensor to receive and To get rid of the blurriness, we could use a barrier to
record light. select out some of the light rays and block the rest.

w This is called a pinhole camera.

w
w
object barrier film
Is this all we need?

object film

Advantages:

w easy to simulate
w everything is in focus
Do we get a useful image?
Disadvantages:

w needs a bright scene (or long exposure)

w everything is in focus
Collecting the light Stacking prisms

Instead of throwing away all but a single ray, let’s try We can use variously shaped prisms to take light rays
to collect a bunch of rays and concentrate them at a of various angles and bend them to pass through a
single point on the sensor. single point.

To do this, we need to be able to change the path of

a light ray.

Fortunately, we have refraction. Light passing from

one medium into a denser one will bend towards the
normal of the interface.

air glass

light ray

air

glass

As we use more and more prisms, the shape

approaches a curve, and we get a lens.

Forming an image with a lens Optics

To quantify lens properties, we’ll need some terms
We can now replace the pinhole barrier with a lens,
from optics (the study of sight and the behavior of
and we still get an image.
light):

object lens film w Focal point - the point where parallel rays
converge when passing through a lens.
w Focal length - the distance from the lens to the
focal point.
w Diopter - the reciprocal of the focal length,
measured in meters.
• Example: A lens with a “power” of 10D has a
focal length of ________.

Now there is a specific distance at which objects are

“in focus”.

By changing the shape of the lens, we change how it

bends the light. focal point

focal length
Structure of the eye Structure of the eye, cont.

The most important structural elements of the eye w Crystalline lens - controls the focal distance:
are: • Power ranges from 10 to 30D in a child.
w Cornea - a clear coating over the front of the • Power and range reduces with age.
eye: w Ciliary body - The muscles that compress the
• Protects eye against physical damage. sides of the lens, controlling its power.
• Provides initial focusing (40D). Q: As an object moves closer, do the ciliary muscles
contract or relax to keep the object in focus?
w Iris - Colored annulus with radial muscles.
w Pupil - The hole whose size is controlled by the
iris.

Eye geometry Retina

w Retina - a layer of photosensitive cells covering

200° on the back of the eye.
Eye geometry accounts for near- and far- • Cones - responsible for color perception.
sightedness.
• Rods - Limited to intensity (but 10x more
w Emmetropic eye - resting eye has focal point sensitive).
on retina. w Fovea - Small region (1 or 2°) at the center of
w Myopic eye - eye too long. the visual axis containing the highest density of
cones (and no rods).
w Hyperopic eye - eye too short.
The human retina Photoreceptive cells

nasal temporal

Photomicrographs at increasing distances from the Cone on a stick.

fovea. The large cells are cones; the small ones are
rods.

Neuronal connections Demonstrations of visual acuity

Even though the retina is very densely covered with

photoreceptors, we have much more acuity in the
fovea than in the periphery.

light

rods cones

+ + + - - +

to brain to brain

With one eye shut, at the right distance, all of these

In the periphery, the outputs of the photoreceptors letters should appear equally legible.
are averaged together before being sent to the brain,
decreasing the spatial resolution. As many as 1000
rods may converge to a single neuron.
Blind spot demonstration.
Wavelength sensitivity Photopigments

Electromagnetic radiation comes in all wavelengths,

from 10-14 to 108 meters. Photopigments are the chemicals in the rods and
cones that react to light. Can respond to a single
The eye is sensitive to EMR with wavelengths from photon!
380 to 780 nanometers (10-9 meters), called “visible w Rods contain rhodopsin, which has peak
light”. sensitivity at 500nm.
Q: What color is the light at 380nm? at 780nm? w Cones come in three varieties: S, M, and L.
Q: Which end of the spectrum has the highest
energy?
Q: What is the “dimensionality” of light? Principle of univariance: No information is
transmitted describing the wavelength of the
photon. Q: why not?

Transmitting color Flicker

Color information is transmitted to the brain in three The photoreceptive cells provide a time-averaged
nerve bundles or channels: response:

w Achromatic channel A = M + L more photons ➠ more response

w Red-green chromatic channel R/G = M - L
w Blue-yellow chromatic channel B/Y = S - A Above a critical flicker frequency (CFF), flashes of
light will fuse into a single image.
Saturation is perceived as the ratio of chromatic to
achromatic response. CFF for humans is about 60 Hz. (For a bee it’s about
300 Hz.)

Q: Do all parts of the visual field have the same CFF?

“blue green”, “green yellow”, “red orange”, “red

violet”, “violet red”, “yellow green”, “yellow orange”

solid: response at 550nm; gray: response at 659 nm

Adaptation Luminous efficiency

Adaptive processes can adjust the base activity

(“bias”) and scale the response (“gain”).

Through adaptation, the eye can handle a large

range of illumination:

Background Luminance (cd/m 2)

Moonless overcast night 0.00003
Moonless clear night 0.03
Twilight 3
Overcast day 300
Day with sunlit clouds 30,000

You can plot the luminous efficiency of:

w Rods (scotopic vision)

w Cones (photopic vision)
as a function of wavelength.

The Purkinje shift refers to the change in peak

wavelength perception between the two types of
vision.

Perceptual light intensity Noise

We perceive light intensity as we do sound: on a

relative or logarithmic scale.

Example: The perceived difference between 0.20

and 0.22 is the same as between 0.80 and ______.

Ideally, to display n+1 equally-spaced intensity levels

I1 I2 I
= =L= n
I0 I1 In−1

Example: Suppose I0=1/8 and n = 3. What are the

four intensity levels to be displayed?

Noise can be thought of as randomness added to the

signal.

The eye is relatively insensitive to noise.

Mach bands Mach bands, cont.

Mach bands were first dicussed by Ernst Mach, and Possible cause: lateral inhibition of nearby cells.
Austrian physicist.

Appear at C0 or C1 intensity discontinuities.

Also appear when there is a rapid intensity change.

Q: Why is this summation pattern useful?

Lightness contrast Summary

Here’s what you should take home from this lecture:

w All the boldfaced terms.

w How a camera forms an image.
w The basic structures of the eye and how they
work.
w How light is a form of EMR and how it is
perceived as color.
w How light intensity is perceived on a
logarithmic scale and is a function of
wavelength.
w The eye’s relative sensitivity to intensity
A related phenomenon is known as: discontinuities, but insensitivity to noise.
w lightness contrast w The phenomena of adaptation and lightness
w simultaneous contrast contrast.
w color contrast (for colors)
This phenomenon helps us maintain a consistent
mental image of the world, under dramatic changes
in illumination.