Fixation could simplify, not complicate, the interpretation of retinal flow

Abstract

The visual system must generate a reference frame to relate retinal images in spite of head and eye movements. We show how a reference frame for storing the visual direction and depth of points can be composed from the angles and changes in angles between pairs and triples of points. The representation has no unique origin in 3-D space nor a unique set of cardinal directions (basis vectors). We show how this relative representation could be built up over a series of fixations and for different directions of translation of the observer. Maintaining gaze on a point as the observer translates helps in building up this representation. In our model, retinal flow is divided into changes in eccentricity and changes in meridional angle. The latter, called ‘polar angle disparities’ for binocular viewing (Weinshall, 1990. Computer Vision Graphics and Image Processing, 49 222–241), can be used to recover the relief structure of the scene in a series of stages up to full Euclidean structure. We show how the direction of heading can be recovered by a similar series of stages.