SEECS Colloquium

Computer graphics is largely concerned with the creation of images. These images are subsequently viewed by humans in the context of specific tasks, with such diverse applications as entertainment and scientific data visualization. Because the human visual system is tuned to view naturally occurring images, knowing its inner workings is important to produce realistic computer generated imagery. Aspects of the early stages of human visual processing are discussed in this talk and two examples of direct applications are given. The first example is based on color processing as it occurs in the human retina. By using a perception based color space, images can be manipulated to take on the look and feel of other images. The second example is based on spatial integration, which also occurs in the retina. In this case, a model of human brightness perception is used to guide the compression of images with a high dynamic range such that they become displayable on low dynamic range devices, usually computer screens. These examples serve the argument that a fuller understanding of the human visual system may lead to useful solutions of open engineering problems.

Erik Reinhard is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Utah in the fields of parallel ray tracing and visual perception. He received a "TWAIO" diploma in parallel computer graphics from Delft University of Technology in 1996 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Bristol in 2000. He is co-chairman of the Eurographics Workshop on Parallel Graphics and Visualisation. He is also co-editor of a book on parallel processing. His current research interests include non-photorealistic rendering, natural image statistics and the connection between visual perception and art.