Hughes/Computer Graphics, 3/E

Chapter 5. An Introduction to Human Visual Perception

5.1. Introduction

The human eye dominates the field of computer graphics, for without it, graphics would be almost useless. Everyone working in graphics should understand something about how the visual system works. Until some day when graphics is “perfect” and somehow indistinguishable from reality, we must try to best use our computational and display resources to convince the visual system that it’s perceiving reality, which entails omitting work that produces undetectable (or barely detectable) differences from the ideal.

This chapter introduces some important basic ideas, as well as outlining the limitations of our current understanding. The science of human vision and the related science ...