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The (In)Effectiveness of Simulated Blur for Depth Perception in Naturalistic Images

Maiello, G; Chessa, M; Solari, F; Bex, PJ; (2015) The (In)Effectiveness of Simulated Blur for Depth Perception in Naturalistic Images. PLOS ONE , 10 (10) , Article e0140230. 10.1371/journal.pone.0140230. Green open access

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Abstract

We examine depth perception in images of real scenes with naturalistic variation in pictorial depth cues, simulated dioptric blur and binocular disparity. Light field photographs of natural scenes were taken with a Lytro plenoptic camera that simultaneously captures images at up to 12 focal planes. When accommodation at any given plane was simulated, the corresponding defocus blur at other depth planes was extracted from the stack of focal plane images. Depth information from pictorial cues, relative blur and stereoscopic disparity was separately introduced into the images. In 2AFC tasks, observers were required to indicate which of two patches extracted from these images was farther. Depth discrimination sensitivity was highest when geometric and stereoscopic disparity cues were both present. Blur cues impaired sensitivity by reducing the contrast of geometric information at high spatial frequencies. While simulated generic blur may not assist depth perception, it remains possible that dioptric blur from the optics of an observer’s own eyes may be used to recover depth information on an individual basis. The implications of our findings for virtual reality rendering technology are discussed.

Type: Article
Title: The (In)Effectiveness of Simulated Blur for Depth Perception in Naturalistic Images
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140230
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0140230
Language: English
Additional information: © 2015 Maiello et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473341
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