Visual Perception of 2D Displays and Art

Why is a picture worth a thousand words? Why is a simple line drawing sketch so compelling? Photographs, paintings, and other forms of fine art excel at creating perceptual and emotional experiences. During my doctoral studies at UC Berkeley, I investigated the interplay between visual perception and pictures-- an understanding of which can improve the design of computer graphics, information visualization, and visual user interfaces.

One intriguing paradox involves picture viewing position relative to its original camera position, or Center of Projection (CoP). One can view a photograph from many positions and it looks undistorted, despite distorted projections onto our retinas. Yet wide-angle photos often look distorted on the sides, even if one views them from the CoP. Our work demonstrated that the paradox can be explained by the brain's use of available cues to the orientation of the picture surface.