{"id":40445,"date":"2021-02-18T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T10:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=40445"},"modified":"2021-02-18T10:57:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T10:57:04","slug":"optic-array-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=40445","title":{"rendered":"Optics array patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"top\" \/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conjoint appearance invariants<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Material and shape are intertwined in the way they convey cues about each other. For instance, a strong invariant for glossy\/shiny objects is the way reflections are curved and\/or diverge more toward silhouettes. This is a conjoint shape\/material invariant w.r.t. lighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such general patterns of distortion are more readily perceived when they come in familiar form, as with ground\/sky gradients reflected off undulating waters, high-curvature edges attracting nearby highlights, near flat surface regions showing a filtered image of the environment lighting, engravings appearing with high contrast due to alternations of lights and darks in shading, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These configurations represent a higher level of analysis than mere differential or statistical ones, but are restricted to special cases that are likely to occur in an animal\/human environment. They are likely to correspond to common settings in evolution, and may have been studied and carefully reproduced in paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connections among light beams<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of Ecological Optics, light beams may be connected in ways that permit to <em>navigate<\/em> over the ambient optics array. For an abstract display, such as reflections off a randomly undulating surface occupying the field of vision with no occluding contours, such a navigation could be thought to be &#8220;uniform&#8221;: no particular feature making it stop and anchor, a smooth visual walk over a relevant but undifferentiated array of visual information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But in general, the ambient optics array is not impoverished to such an extent: patterns in the array provide more meaningful information to observers than others. How can these patterns be identified? This will likely not be a purely objective business, due to dependence on scale (e.g., looking from a distance VS at arm length), on attention (e.g., focusing on how a scene is reflected on a glossy surface VS what is reflected in it), on task (free locomotion VS having a search image), etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps the only valid way to study those patterns is to consider <em>specific instances<\/em> instead of trying to derive general mechanisms? For instance, one may study how folds on fabric yield structured patterns of shadows and reflections; how waves on a water surface yield so-called light pools with their specific concentric patterns; etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is likely that different such patterns will emerge in different lighing conditions. It thus becomes important to consider <em>ecologically-relevant environments<\/em>; in contrast, artificial settings might lead to different types of patterns that may be deemed surprising. or even illegible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To recap, ambient optics array patterns may be optained by relying on the (potential) structure offered by light beams, which is made effective in a given class of lighting environments, and available at a set of scales. The extent of patterns may thus be hard to characterize, except when they end on clearly identified occluding contours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Integration in visual perception<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Patterns may be seen as <em>dynamic recipes<\/em> corresponding to the description of a particular class\/family of optics array structures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patterns may act as the subsets of the ambient optic array onto which an &#8220;interface-like&#8221; theory of perception can rely and act.  Refering to the interface metaphor, they may be the icons that simplify the world of an organism. In terms of Ecological Optics, they serve as proxies to the potential\/effective cues offered by the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Depending on the task and experience of the perceiving agent, patterns may be &#8220;invoked&#8221;, searched for, and throughout the development of an organism, learnt by the agent. Such learning might be done unconsciously, but in the case of an artist, it might be a very well conscious process in the goal of deciphering appearance patterns so as to <em>re<\/em>present them effectively. The study of artistic practice is thus a promising direction to understand which patterns matter to humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conjoint appearance invariants Material and shape are intertwined in the way they convey cues about each other. For instance, a strong invariant for glossy\/shiny objects is the way reflections are curved and\/or diverge more toward silhouettes. This is a conjoint shape\/material invariant w.r.t. lighting. Such general patterns of distortion are more readily perceived when they &#8230; <a title=\"Optics array patterns\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=40445\" aria-label=\"Read more about Optics array patterns\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[651],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40445"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40448,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40445\/revisions\/40448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}