DIR 2007 - International Symposium on Digital industrial Radiology and Computed Tomography, June 25-27, 2007, Lyon, France

Visual Perception of Spatial Subjects

Kurt R. S. Osterloh 1, Uwe Ewert 1
1

Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), VIII.3, 12200 Berlin,
Germany, phone: +49 (0) 30 8104 3654, e-mail: kurt.osterloh@bam.de

Abstract
Principally, any imaging technology consists of two consecutive, though strictly separated processes: data
acquisition and subsequent processing to generate an image that can be looked at, either on a monitor
screen or printed on paper. Likewise, the physiological process of viewing can be separated into vision
and perception, though these processes are much more overlapping. Understanding the appearance of a
subject requires the entire sequence from receiving the information carried e.g. by photons up to an appropriate processing leading to the perception of the subject shown. As a consequence, the imagination
of a subject is a result of both, technological and physiological processes. Whenever an evaluation of an
image is critical, also the physiological part of the processing should be considered.
However, an image has two dimensions in the first place and reality is spatial, it has three dimensions. This problem has been tackled on a philosophical level at least since Platons famous discussion on the shadow image in a dark cave. The mere practical point is which structural details can be perceived and what may remain undetected depending on the mode of presentation. This problem cannot be
resolved without considering each single step of visual perception.
Physiologically, there are three tools available to understanding the spatial structure of a subject: binocular viewing, following the course of perspective projection and motion to collect multiple aspects. Artificially, an object may be cut in various ways to display the interior or covering parts could be
made transparent within a model. Samples will be shown how certain details of a subject can be emphasised or hidden depending on the way of presentation. It needs to be discussed what might help to perceive the true spatial structure of a subject with all relevant details and what could be misleading.
Keywords: image (data) processing, image interpretation, physiological capabilities and constraints, visibility of certain features, perception of a subject

1. Introduction
It has been already aware to the ancient Greek philosophers that we perceive the surrounding reality as an image, which is two-dimensional in its nature though the reality is
three-dimensional. In his famous work Politeia (commonly translated as The
State), Platon discussed in the seventh volume extensively how shadows of figures are
being perceived and interpreted as reality and how problems may raise when being
confronted with the world outside the cave. The question how to present the spatial
reality on the dimensions of a canvas has been tackled by numerous artists, some of
them even playing jokes with the presentation of space [1]. However, the human visual
sense has mechanisms to realise the environment in all three dimensions. Understanding how they operate has contributed to find ways to presenting spatial objects visibly in
all three dimensions.
The purpose of this contribution is to make aware of the three major and basic
physiological mechanisms of perceiving space visually. Besides understanding perspective drawings, these are the binocular viewing and time resolved perception. This
includes gathering views from various directions while moving around the specimen or
turning it itself. None of these mechanisms operate independently; even the binocular
and time resolved viewing cooperate as it can be demonstrated by the Pulfrich effect
[2]. Though the primary sensor for light is located in the eye this site is more than a

mere receptor. Interconnecting neurons care for both, high pass filtering for sharpening
contours and data reduction, i.e. the information from more than 100 million receptor
cells are forwarded to the brain by som 1 million ganglion cells. In contrast to technical
systems where data acquistion and processing are rather separated the biological one has
both steps more integrated along the whole data propagation and processing chain.
Even more, the receptor properties of the retina are not equally distributed over the
plane; high resolution and the perception of colours are allocated in the central areas
whereas the peripheral ones are more sensitive to fast motion. The adaptation to the
ambient light conditions is achieved on several levels from the retina to the thalamus.
The following description of the mechanisms of human vision will be focussed on the
three-dimensional perception, i.e. of spatial subjects.

2. Physiological Principles
2.1 Physiological Data Processing
eye
retina

adaptation,
contrast,
data reduction

thalamus
lateral
geniculate
body

contrast,
modulation,
generation of a
static image, association and
imagination fed
from memory
merging of
disparate images,
directions,

cortex
primary visual cortex
(V1)

perspective,
subsequent
cortical
areas
(V2 )

motion (separate
lane)

memory

shape, pattern,
association

Figure 1: Allocation of physiological processing

The primary receptor of light, i.e. the information carried by photons, are the light sensitive cells of the retina of the human eye. From there on, propagation and processing
of visual information are closely interwoven and operating bidirectionally from the
thalamus on. The allocations to the corresponding anatomical structures are outlined in

Figure 1 with the parts of the brain involved in the left column and the specific functions in the right one. The optic nerves are partially crossing over before reaching the
two lateral geniculate bodies of the thalamus. For the sake of simplicity, only one of the
two symmetical halfs is depicted in Figure 1, the missing one has to be figured just mirrored on the left side.
The crossover of the optical nerves links the right half planes of both eyes totally
to the right lateral geniculate body and, vice verse, the left ones to the left body (not
shown in this figure). Within the thalamus, the images received from the eyes exist in a
stack of copies. This is the site to generate a static image where all motions of the eyes
are compensated. The black dot in the retinas of both eyes should represent a point in
an image currently received by the eye. Propagated to the thalamus, this point will be
found aligned in the alternately stacked copies from both eyes. Since the viewing directions of both eyes are differently tilted toward the central axis the images received by
both retinas are slightly different, i.e. disparate (see below). Both disparate images are
merged in the primary visual cortex, where also the perception of directions is allocated.
Following the perception of perspectives, there is a separation into the recognition of
shapes, patterns and the association with the memory on one side and following motions
on the other side. The latter may have an influence on the attention, i.e., if we realise
that something is passing by we may follow it with focussing our viewing into the direction of the object passed and even turn our head, if necessary. At this stage, visual
perception has entered consciousness, we are knowingly aware of what we see. Before
that, all processes compiling an image remain unconsciously. All processes such as adaptation, filtering, merging disparate images etc. work automatically without burdening
our mind. Though association takes place deep in the memory it may have a feed back
influence even up to the thalamus region, i.e. into the area of unconsciousness. So vision is a rather complex physiological process from receiving optically an image across
several mechanisms including feed back loops finally to the understanding what is being
seen.

2.2 Binocular Viewing: Disparate Images

The principles of binocular viewing are summarised in Figure 2. Since the retina is
spherically shaped all points of an outer circle in focussing distance appear to be equally
distant, i.e., there is no stereopsis. This circle is called the horopter (Figure 2 a). If a
central point (red viewing axis) is shifted to the left (green axis), then it is shifted on the
retina of both eyes in the same direction. This is different for any point in front of or
behind the horopter. Any closer point causes an outward shift on the retinas and, vice
verse, any more distant one an inward shift. This is the principle of binocular viewing
generating disparate images. This can be pretended by presenting technically two images with the disparate features separately to each single eye. One classical way is to
overlay such images with different colours and to view them with spectacles that have
complementarily stained glasses. Since the eye has different sensors for red, green and
blue light, the pair of colours used classically for this purpose is red/green (see below).
In some optical systems the viewing axis of each eye is diverted in a way that it is
viewing a separate image each, e.g. with optical prismas.

Figure 2: Binocular viewing:

a) horopter (curve with no stereopsis), b) disparate images, c) Pulfrich effect

2.3 Motion while keeping the direction of viewing

Another way of pretending space is by introducing a time shift between the two eyes
when receiving an image of a moving object, commonly known as the Pulfrich effect
[2]. This can be achieved by reducing the light intensity in one eye by a grey filter
which has a retarding effect on the perception in the respective eye so the moving object
is registered slightly later than in the bare eye. In an experiment, such a moving object
can be presented as a pendulum that is restricted e.g. with two strings to move in one
plane only. When watching this pendulum with one eye darkened by a grey filter, the
object appears to leave the plane whenever passing through the centre of the oscillating
motion which is physically not possible. Figure 2 c should help to understand this effect. Supposed that the real pendulum moves tangentially to the horopter from right to
left, shading one eye with a grey filter causes the time delay as described. If the right
eye is shaded, then the pendulum is registered with the left eye first as indicated with
the blue symbols, i.e., the pendulum apparently leaves the restricted area to the rear.
Vice verse, if the left eye is shaded, then the right one is the first one to register the pendulum so it apparently comes closer. This effect has been used for three-dimensional
movie presentations only needing spectacles with a grey filter on one eye and nothing
more than a usual screen display.

2.4 Motion to collect multiple aspects

Understanding an object fully in its spatial dimensions requires collecting aspects from
all sides. We are either walking around a large object to see it from the side and from
the back, if possible, or we are turning around a small one in our hands, to perceive it in
its full spatial extension. Principally, this is a feature common with tomographic tech-

nologies where projections are collected systematically from any direction of viewing.
While physiologically the result is intellectually an abstract imagination the goal of the
technological computed tomography (CT) is the generation of a complete set of spatial
density data. It requires a secondary set of tools to present these data visually, either as
image sequences or as a perspective drawing. In spite of the common features, the main
difference between CT and physiological perception remains evident. The technical
process consists of clear-cut subsequent phases: data acquisition, processing and computing a three-dimensional set of data which is subsequently transformed into visible
images. Physiologically, several mechanisms operate in parallel from the very beginning up to the imagination of a subject in its full three-dimensional extensions.

2.5 Perspective presentation

Apart from all binocular mechanisms there is the understanding of perspective with a
horizon and vanishing points. This tool has been used extensively in the art of painting,
and a plethora of examples can be found in nearly any gallery. Some artists like Escher
challenged the illusion by perverting the perspectives within an image in a way so that
e.g. down streaming water ends up in its origin or people are climbing a never ending
staircase [1]. However, weird perspective presentations can also being produced photographically, as shown in Figure 3 (the object is real; the photo is not a fake). Particularly in the art of painting, light and shadows are used to underline the spatial feature of
the presented scenery. Since this is a process within the cortex it would exceed the
scope of this contribution to tackle this aspect more in detail in this context.

Figure 3: photo of an impossible triangle

3. A radiographic example
The practical example in Figure 4 demonstrates how to gain an impression how the details are arranged in the space of the interior of object shown. The specimen consists of
a bottom, a top and two side plates, all screwed together, and is stuffed with parts of
various densities which are not all visible form the outside (Figure 4 a). The first radiograph (Figure 4 b), taken with a nearly parallel X-ray beam (source in 3 m distance),
shows a clear projection of the interior and, in particular, the top, bottom and one side
plate with clear edges. Starting from here, there are three approaches to mediate the
three-dimensionality of the object: to turn it (Figure 4 c), to introduce a vanishing point
by a cone beam radiation geometry (reducing the distance from the source to 0.7 m,
Figure 4 d) or by presenting disparate images (Figure 4 e).
Turning the object (Figure 4 c) reveals the nature of the large non-transparent
part at the bottom, i.e. a battery pack. However, this is only one another of numerous
possible projections. While the technical process of CT moves stepwise around the object collecting hundred and more single projections which are subsequently uses to reconstruct a data set representing the entire object. Upon completing this step, the data
set can be presented in various forms. In physiology, a few looks from various sides
already allow an assessment of the spatial construction of an object, i.e., an imagination
is generated in the brain. When comparing the radiographs taken with the sources at
different distances (Figure 4 b and d), it is quite obvious that the lateral areas of the image appear distorted due to the cone beam geometry. Moreover, the parts in the front,
i.e. towards the source, appear larger. Both, the trapezoidal distortion and the shift in
size of the parts within the projection image are typical features of perspective presentations. The vanishing point is the perpendicular projection of the focal point of the
source onto the imaging plane; however, this is not always as obvious as in perspective
drawings or paintings. The better way to generate an impression of space is to present
disparate images separately to each single eye as explained above. Figure 4 e shows
such a presentation where the two images are distinguished by their red and green colour. To obtain a spatial impression, this images needs to be viewed at with red-green
spectacles.

Figure 4: Radiography: space projected into a two-dimensional plane,

a) object containing details easily visualised radiographically
b) nearly parallel X-rays (source in 3 m distance)
c) same object irradiated from the right side
d) cone beam geometry of X-rays (source in 70 cm distance)
e) overlay of disparate images, to be viewed with red/green-spectacles

4. Conclusion
Various physiological mechanisms contribute to the perception of objects and understanding their spatial structure. In difference to technical systems, where the image information is acquired first and subsequently processed, acquisition, processing and data
reduction are parallel processes already starting in the eye. To conceive a spatial structure, the predominant physiological mechanisms are: a) binocular viewing and merging
the resulting disparate images, b) collecting motion sequences and c) understanding the
perspective presentation of spatial objects on a two-dimensional canvas. The process of
visual perception is allocated in different parts of the brain and remains unconscious in
large parts. It becomes conscious later on in the cortex of the brain, particularly when it
comes to the understanding of the course of perspective angles as well as the presence
of a horizon and vanishing points. However, just a single viewing perspective can generate confusing illusions. Therefore, it may require several aspects to perceive a spatial
subject correctly.
References
1. Maurits Cornelis Escher, 1898 1972,
2. A. Anzai, I. Ohzawa and R.D. Freeman, Joint-encoding of motion and depth by visual cortical neurons: neural basis of the Pulfrich effect', Nature Neuroscience, Vol 4,
No 5, pp 513-518, 2001. (http://neurosci.nature.com)