Elements of Visual Perception

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 1

RECAP

Origins

Fundamentals Steps in DIP

Components in DIP

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 2

Elements of Visual Perception

Outline

Structure of the human eye

Image formation in the human eye

Brightness adaptation and discrimination

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 3

Human Visual System
In many image processing applications,
the objective is to help a human observer
perceive the visual information in an image.
Hence, it is important to understand the human visual
system.
The human visual system consists mainly of
the eye (image sensor or camera),
optic nerve (transmission path), and
brain (image information processing unit or
computer).

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 4

Human Visual System

The human visual system

is one of the most sophisticated image processing
and analysis systems.

Its understanding would also help

in the design of efficient, accurate and effective
computer/machine vision systems.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 5

Human Visual System

(Picture from Microsoft Encarta 2000)

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 6

Human Visual System

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 7

 Human Eye Structure
Nearly spherical with a
diameter of 20 mm (approx.).
Three membranes enclose the
eye:
Cornea and sclera,
Choroid
Ciliary body
Iris diaphragm
Lens
Retina
Cones
Rods
Blind spot

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 8

 Human Eye Structure
Cornea
Outer tough transparent
membrane,
covers anterior surface.
Sclera
Outer tough opaque
membrane,
covers rest of the optic
globe.
Choroid
Contains blood vessels,
provides nutrition.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 9

 Human Eye Structure
Iris
Anterior portion of choroid,
pigmented, gives color to the
eye.
Pupil
Aperture(Central opening) of
the Iris,
controls the amount of light
entering the eye
Pupil size: 2-8mm
Lens
Made of concentric layers of
fibrous cells, contains 60-70%
water.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 10

 Human Eye Structure
Retina
Innermost layer,
“screen” on which image
is formed by the lens
when properly focused
contains photoreceptors
(cells sensitive to light).
Retinal Photoreceptors
Two types
rods and
cones (light sensors).

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 11

 Human Eye Structure
Cones
6-7 millions,
located in central
portion of retina
(fovea)
responsible for
photopic vision (bright-
light vision) and color
perception
can resolve fine
details.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 12

 Human Eye Structure
Rods
75-150 million
distributed over the
entire retina
responsible for
scotopic vision (dim-
light vision)
not color sensitive
gives general overall
picture (not details).

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 13

 Human Eye Structure
Fovea
Circular indentation in
center of retina,
about 1.5mm
diameter
dense with cones.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 14

 Human Eye Structure
Photoreceptors around
fovea responsible for
spatial vision (still
images).
the periphery
responsible for
detecting motion.
Blind spot
Point on retina where
optic nerve emerges,
devoid of
photoreceptors.
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 15
 Structure of the Human Eye
Photopic (bright-light) vision:
vision with cones
color receptors,
high resolution in the fovea,
less sensitive to light
Scotopic (dim-light) vision:
vision with rods
color blind,
much more sensitive to light (night vision),
lower resolution

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 16

Structure of the Human Eye-
Distribution of Rods and Cones on Retina

Fovea size is 1.5 mm in diameter

the fovea is rod-free & has a very high density of cones.
1.5 mm  1.5 mm square contain 337000 cones

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 17

 Structure of the Human Eye-
Distribution of Rods and Cones on Retina

The density of cones falls of rapidly to a constant level at

about 10-15 degrees from the fovea.
the blind spot which has no receptors.
At about 15°-20° from the fovea, the density of the rods
reaches a maximum.
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 18
Blind-Spot Experiment
Draw an image similar to that below on a piece of paper
(the dot and cross are about 6 inches apart)

Close your right eye and focus on the cross with your
left eye

Hold the image about 20 inches away from your face

and move it slowly towards you

The dot should disappear!

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 19
 Image formation in the human eye

Light
Receptor Brain
Radiant
Energy electrical
impulses
Flexible lens: the principle difference from an ordinary optical lens.
Controlled by the tension in the fibers of the ciliary body
To focus on distant objects (>3m), lens exhibits the least
refractive power (flattened)
To focus on objects near eye (<1m), lens is most strongly
refractive (curved)– thicker
Near-sighted and far-sighted

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 20

 Image formation in the human eye

Focal length of the eye: 17 to 14 mm

Let h be the height in mm of that object in the retinal
image, then
15/100 = h / 17 , h = 2.55mm
The retinal image is reflected primarily in the area of
the fovea.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 21

Brightness Adaptation
The range of light intensity
human can adapt to is in
the range of 1010(enormous
range )
subjective brightness
(Brightness as perceived by
human visual system)
is a logarithmic function
of light intensity
incident on the eye.

mL = millilambert
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 22
Brightness Adaptation
Human visual system cannot
operate over such a high dynamic
range of intensity levels
simultaneously
It accomplishes this large
variation by changing in its overall
sensitivity, a phenomenon known as
brightness adaptation.
At a given sensitivity, the eye
can simultaneously discriminate
only a small number of intensity
levels

mL = millilambert
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 23
Brightness Adaptation
For a given condition, the
sensitivity of the visual system
is called the brightness
adaptation level (ex. Ba ).
At this adaptation, the eye
can perceive brightness in the
range Bb
(below which, everything is
perceived as black) to Ba
(above which, the eye adapts to a
different sensitivity).

mL = millilambert
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 24
Brightness Discrimination
Brightness discrimination
is the ability of the eye
to discriminate between
changes in light intensity
at any specific adaptation
level.
The increment of intensity
∆ Ic that is discriminable
over a background intensity
of I is measured.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 25

Brightness Discrimination
Weber ratio
it is the ratio ∆ Ic / I.

Small value of Weber ratio

good brightness discrimination,
a small percentage change in
intensity is discriminable.

Large value of Weber ratio

poor brightness discrimination,
a large percentage change in
intensity is required.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 26

Brightness Discrimination
Brightness discrimination is poor at low levels of
illumination.
The two branches in the curve indicate that
at low levels of illumination vision is carried out by the
rods, whereas at high level by the cones.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 27

Brightness discrimination-summary
Weber ratio (the experiment) Ic/I
I: the background
illumination
Ic : the increment of
illumination
Small Weber ratio
indicates good discrimination
Larger Weber ratio
indicates poor discrimination

28
Psychovisual effects Perceived
Brightness
Two phenomena clearly
demonstrate that
The perceived
brightness is not a
simple function of
intensity
Mach band pattern
Simultaneous contrast

29
Mach bands were named after Ernst Mach who
described the phenomenon in 1865

An example of
Mach bands

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 30

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 31
 The spatial
interaction of
luminances
from an
object and its
surround
creates a
phenomenon

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 32

Brightness Adaptation of Human Eye :
Mach band effect

First Phenomena
Visual system tends to
undershoot or overshoot
around boundary of regions
of different intensities.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 33

 A region’s perceived brightness is not a function of only
its intensity, but depends on the background intensity as
well.
All the center squares in the figure below have exactly
Forsame
the more intensity.
great illusion examplesthey
However, take aappear
look at:to the human eye
tohttp://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz
become darker as the background becomes brighter.
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 34
Brightness Adaptation of Human Eye :
Simultaneous Contrast

All small squares have exactly the same intensity

but they appear progressively darker as background
becomes lighter.
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 35
 Perceived Brightness

The second phenomena, called simultaneous contrast, a

spot may appears to the eye to become darker as the
background gets lighter.
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 36
or more
09/17/23great illusion DIGITAL
examples take a look at:http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz
IMAGE PROCESSING 37
 Fascinating Optical Illusions

What do you see?

What “should” you see?
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 38
Optical illusion
Our visual systems
play lots of interesting
tricks on us
The fills in non-
existent information
or wrongly perceives
geometrical properties
of objects.

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 39

Optical illusion

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 40

Optical illusion

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 41

Optical illusion

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 42

Stare at the cross in the middle of the image and think circles
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 43
Optical Illusions

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 44

09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 45
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 46
09/17/23 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING 47