Monday, 8 July 2013

Part 5: more depth cues...




 In addition to the depth cues I talked about in the previous post, all of which can be exploited in pictures, there are 4 cues which are very powerful, particularly in judging the distance of things close by, in personal space. 

Unfortunately these cues arise only in the presence of motion or stereoscopic vision, and can't be reprodiuced in drawings! They're mentioned here for interest only.


1. binocular disparities

 – The left and right eyes see a slightly different angle of an object. If an object is far away, the disparity of that image falling on both retinas will be small, and the effect is not noticeable. If the object is near, in personal space, the disparity will be large. Hold a finger up at arm’s length and close each eye alternately – notice how you have a different field of view in each eye.

2. motion parallax 

- When an observer moves, the apparent relative motion of several stationary objects against a background gives hints about their relative distance. This is very noticeable when watching the landscape from a moving train. 

3. convergence 

- When the two eye balls focus on the same object they are said to converge. This convergence stretches the muscles attached to the eyeball. The angle of convergence, and hence the muscle stretch,  is smaller when the eye is fixating on far away objects, and hence is not very effective at a distance of over 10 metres. It becomes most effective at very close range, particularly within personal space. 

4. accommodation

 - This is another muscular cue for depth perception. When we try to focus on far away objects, the muscles of the lens in the eye  stretch, making the lens  thinner, to change the focal length. The sensation of these muscles contracting and relaxing is used by the brain for interpreting distance/depth. Like other muscular cues accommodation is only effective close up, within personal space. 


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