Novel theory on mach-bands and gradient formation in early vision

Matthias S. Keil; Gabriel Cristobal; Heiko Neumann

doi:10.1117/12.499072

18 April 2003 Novel theory on mach-bands and gradient formation in early vision

Matthias S. Keil, Gabriel Cristobal, Heiko Neumann

Proceedings Volume 5119, Bioengineered and Bioinspired Systems; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.499072
Event: Microtechnologies for the New Millennium 2003, 2003, Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain

Abstract

Recognizing objects of interest in real-world scenes is a principal computational goal of the primate visual system. This process involves the representation of object surfaces in the first visual areas of the neocortex. Luminance gradients are usually superimposed on object surfaces, what complicates the recovery of the surface reflectance functions on the one hand, but may provide valuable information about surface texture and surface curvature one the other hand. Consequently, there should be a way to recognize and represent luminance gradients independently from object surfaces. However, there is no corresponding theory available up to now. Here we present a two-stage architecture which is compatible with this idea. The first stage involves the detection of luminance gradients in a given intensity image, which are subsequently recovered in the second stage. By means of a novel diffusion paradigm, our architecture is capable of building representations of arbitrary sized luminance gradients from sparse local measurements of gradient evidence. Since our architecture both predicts psychophysical data on Mach bands, and successfully processes real-world scenes, it constitutes a potential computational theory on how luminance gradients are processed and represented in the first visual areas of the brain.

Citation Download Citation

Matthias S. Keil, Gabriel Cristobal, and Heiko Neumann "Novel theory on mach-bands and gradient formation in early vision", Proc. SPIE 5119, Bioengineered and Bioinspired Systems, (18 April 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.499072

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