Depth--Slides Flashcards
Depth Perception
The brain uses many sources of information to determine distance and 3D shape.


Occulomter cues to depth. These are two hypothesis about how these circuts work: inflow hypothesis (A) and outflow hypothesis (B)

Occlusion cues. T intersections play an important role in depth perception from occlusion.

Perspective (texture gradient) cues
More perspective cue examples


Perspective and the vanishing point.

shading cues to depth and shape.

Flipping the previous slide over shows that the brain tends to interpet the shading cuses and the light as is coming from above

Almost all the shape seen in sand dunes (and faces)is due to shading/shadow. sand in the desrt (and skin on a face) is a fairly homogenous material.

Shading and perspective cues to depth and shape

Depth from shadows

Depth from shadows
Blur and visibility cues


The familiarity with the relative sizes of hands and heads can be used for distance judgment

Familiarity, perspective, occlusion and other clues.

Binovularity cues to depth and shape. When the eyes are fixed on the green square, objects at other distances fall on non-coressponding locations in the two eyes. The brain uses those disparities to judge relative depth.



Crayon distance



Random dot stereograms are useful for studying the disparity cue in isolation. They show that depth from disparity is not a mtter of recognizing objects i each eye and then comparing the positions of those objects. In fact, objects can be recognized from dispairty information alone.


Sharp edges are not required for seeing depth from binocular disparity

Pen Test, tests for depth perception

Disparity thresholds for different spatial frequency targes. For medium and high spatial frequencies disparity thresholds are small (down to 20 sec of arc or less)







