Perceiving the shape and material properties of 3D surfaces

Published on November 11, 2022

Our perception of the world is like deciphering a puzzle. We rely on the way light interacts with different objects and surfaces to create images that hold clues about shape and material properties. It’s like untangling a chaotic mix of information to determine what something looks like and what it’s made of. Traditionally, this has been a challenging task because the information was thought to be too jumbled. However, recent research suggests that there are hidden patterns in the way light behaves that actually encode both the 3D shape and material properties of surfaces. This means our visual system has a sophisticated code-breaking ability! By understanding these patterns, scientists can gain insights into how we perceive and interpret the world around us. So, if you’re curious about how light unlocks secrets about shape and material, check out the fascinating research behind it!

Our visual experience of the world relies on the interaction of light with the different substances, surfaces, and objects in our environment. These optical interactions generate images that contain a conflated mixture of different scene variables, which our visual system must somehow disentangle to extract information about the shape and material properties of the world. Such problems have historically been considered to be ill-posed, but recent work suggests that there are complex patterns of covariation in light that co-specify the 3D shape and material properties of surfaces.

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