Range Of Visual Cues Research Articles

Unruliness and Exorbitance

Unruliness and Exorbitance

Incidence of stereo blindness in a recent VR distance perception user study

Estimates of stereo-blindness, the inability to see in 3D using stereopsis, often sit in the 5-10% range. At the Curtin University HIVE visualization facility, we regularly show stereoscopic content. During those demonstrations we invariably show a test random dot stereogram and it’s been our casual observation that the incidence of stereo-blindness amongst visits has been much lower than the 5-10% figure, perhaps as low as 2%. Our thought was that perhaps eye care has improved since the time that the original stereo-blindness studies were performed. A VR based user study was recently run in the HIVE, as part of a PhD project, with an aim to study distance perception in underwater virtual heritage experiences. Distance perception is facilitated by a range of visual cues, including stereoscopic vision, and as a result we screened participants for stereo-blindness. Using a standardized stereo test, we found approximately 5% of participants reported as stereo blind. This presentation will provide some background on stereo-blindness, and discuss issues related to measuring stereo-blindness and its likely prevalence in the general population. It will also provide an early look at the VR based user study investigating distance perception in underwater virtual heritage experiences.

Putting imperial time on show: visual culture in the mid-nineteenth-century anniversaries of Singapore and Batavia

ABSTRACT The article examines the uses of visual culture and visual representations of time in two major public anniversaries in nineteenth-century colonial Southeast Asia: the 35th anniversary of Singapore in 1854 and the 250th anniversary of Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1869. The authorities in these two major colonial cities, capitals of the British Straits Settlements and the Dutch East Indies respectively, made use of these occasions to celebrate colonial rule, but also to project specific and contrasting messages to their intended audiences. These messages were embodied in a range of visual cues, representations, and events throughout the anniversary programmes, including images, sculptures, decorations, architecture, theatrical performances, and balls. Analysing this range of visual materials and focusing on the fleeting and spatially specific experience of the ceremonies rather than durable material representations, this article shows that the two anniversaries embodied strikingly different conceptualisations of historical time and imperial self-fashioning: one broadly presentist and forward-looking, the other far more past-oriented. Connecting these cultural differences to the diverging historical circumstances of the two colonies at the time, the article argues that imperial visual culture, especially in relation to practices of commemoration, was both global and transnational in its re-employment of metropolitan models on the one hand and highly locally specific on the other, responding to needs that were specific to the time and the place.

Differential processing of binocular and monocular gloss cues in human visual cortex.

The visual impression of an object's surface reflectance (“gloss”) relies on a range of visual cues, both monocular and binocular. Whereas previous imaging work has identified processing within ventral visual areas as important for monocular cues, little is known about cortical areas involved in processing binocular cues. Here, we used human functional MRI (fMRI) to test for brain areas selectively involved in the processing of binocular cues. We manipulated stereoscopic information to create four conditions that differed in their disparity structure and in the impression of surface gloss that they evoked. We performed multivoxel pattern analysis to find areas whose fMRI responses allow classes of stimuli to be distinguished based on their depth structure vs. material appearance. We show that higher dorsal areas play a role in processing binocular gloss information, in addition to known ventral areas involved in material processing, with ventral area lateral occipital responding to both object shape and surface material properties. Moreover, we tested for similarities between the representation of gloss from binocular cues and monocular cues. Specifically, we tested for transfer in the decoding performance of an algorithm trained on glossy vs. matte objects defined by either binocular or by monocular cues. We found transfer effects from monocular to binocular cues in dorsal visual area V3B/kinetic occipital (KO), suggesting a shared representation of the two cues in this area. These results indicate the involvement of mid- to high-level visual circuitry in the estimation of surface material properties, with V3B/KO potentially playing a role in integrating monocular and binocular cues.

An augmented-reality-based real-time panoramic vision system for autonomous navigation

The paper discusses a panoramic vision system for autonomous-navigation purposes. It describes an economic PC-based method for integrating data from multiple camera sources in real time. The views from adjacent cameras are visualized together as a panorama of the scene using a modified correlation-based stitching algorithm. A separate operator is presented with a particular slice of the panorama matching the user's viewing direction. Additionally, a simulated environment is created where the operator can choose to augment the video by simultaneously viewing an artificial three-dimensional (3-D) view of the scene. Potential applications of this system include enhancing quality and range of visual cues, and navigation under hostile circumstances where direct view of the environment is not possible or desirable.