The Natural Flow of Perspective: Reformulating Perspective Projection for Computer Animation

E. H. Blake
1990 Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology  
What essential information about natural scenes would have to be simulated to make convincing animated pictures?" This question can be answered by combining theories of perception, image analysis and computer graphics. The synthesis would form the foundation of realistic computer animation. Initial steps towards the answer are taken by exploring various aspects of perspective. Perspective refers to the appearance of things relative to the position and motion of the simulated observer. The term
more » ... overs the change of spatial detail with simulated distance and the temporal flow of appearances due to relative movement -the optic flow. It's shown how projection on a flat plane can fail to account for our intuitive expectation of how appearances change with distance. A way of describing truly moving pictures, not a sequence of still frames, is also derived. This accords better with the way things are seen: the eye has no shutter chopping up the continuous optic flow. These ideas come from regarding image synthesis from the point of view of the observer of the simulated world rather than from analysing the physics of the simulation. This approach seems essential for further advances in computer graphics.
doi:10.2307/1575343 fatcat:xlmxqbeie5hbpaxafxkhrhj3om