Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Depth cues

We use a variety of cues to perceive depth; motion is only one of many. One of the most powerful cues to depth, especially at short distances, is binocular disparity, the difference in the images received by each eye. Additionally, we make use of accommodation, the thickening and thinning of the lens of the eye to better focus on near and far objects respectively. Additionally, we use a number of "pictorial" cues to depth, such as the fact that nearer objects occlude further objects (occlusion), nearer objects are larger than further objects (relative size) and are further from the horizon (relative position).