Environment maps and the perception of shape from mirror reflections

Abstract

Environment maps are commonly used in computer graphics to approximate the appearance of smoothly curved surfaces with mirror-like reflectance. Perceiving the shape of such surfaces is a challenging task for the visual system, however, because the image intensities are determined both by the surface shape and by the environment [Fleming et al. 2004]. Here we extend our recent study of the perception of qualitative shape of mirror surfaces [Faisman and Langer 2013] by examining more closely how qualitative shape perception varies with the environment maps that are used.