The Visual World of Shadows

The Visual World of Shadows PDF Author: Roberto Casati
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262351951
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
How the perception of shadows, studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. In The Visual World of Shadows, Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh examine how the perception of shadows, as studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. Shadows are at once a massive problem for vision—which must distinguish them from objects or material features of objects—and a resource, signaling the presence, location, shape, and size of objects. Casati and Cavanagh draw up an inventory of information retrievable from shadows, showing their amazing variety. They present an overview of the visual system, distinguishing between measurement and inference. They discuss the shadow mission, the work done by the visual brain to parse, and perhaps discard, the information from shadows; shadow ownership, the association of a shadow with the object that casts it; shadow labeling, the visual system's ability to tell shadows from nonshadows; and the shadow concept, our knowledge about shadows as a category. Casati and Cavanagh then apply the theoretical apparatus they have developed for shadows to other phenomena: illumination, reflection, and transparency. Finally, they examine the art of the shadow, paying tribute to artists' exploration of shadow, analyzing a series of artworks (reproduced in color) from a rich and fascinating art historical corpus.

The Visual World of Shadows

The Visual World of Shadows PDF Author: Roberto Casati
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262351951
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book

Book Description
How the perception of shadows, studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. In The Visual World of Shadows, Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh examine how the perception of shadows, as studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. Shadows are at once a massive problem for vision—which must distinguish them from objects or material features of objects—and a resource, signaling the presence, location, shape, and size of objects. Casati and Cavanagh draw up an inventory of information retrievable from shadows, showing their amazing variety. They present an overview of the visual system, distinguishing between measurement and inference. They discuss the shadow mission, the work done by the visual brain to parse, and perhaps discard, the information from shadows; shadow ownership, the association of a shadow with the object that casts it; shadow labeling, the visual system's ability to tell shadows from nonshadows; and the shadow concept, our knowledge about shadows as a category. Casati and Cavanagh then apply the theoretical apparatus they have developed for shadows to other phenomena: illumination, reflection, and transparency. Finally, they examine the art of the shadow, paying tribute to artists' exploration of shadow, analyzing a series of artworks (reproduced in color) from a rich and fascinating art historical corpus.

The Visual World of Shadows

The Visual World of Shadows PDF Author: Roberto Casati
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262550849
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
How the perception of shadows, studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. In The Visual World of Shadows, Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh examine how the perception of shadows, as studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. Shadows are at once a massive problem for vision—which must distinguish them from objects or material features of objects—and a resource, signaling the presence, location, shape, and size of objects. Casati and Cavanagh draw up an inventory of information retrievable from shadows, showing their amazing variety. They present an overview of the visual system, distinguishing between measurement and inference. They discuss the shadow mission, the work done by the visual brain to parse, and perhaps discard, the information from shadows; shadow ownership, the association of a shadow with the object that casts it; shadow labeling, the visual system's ability to tell shadows from nonshadows; and the shadow concept, our knowledge about shadows as a category. Casati and Cavanagh then apply the theoretical apparatus they have developed for shadows to other phenomena: illumination, reflection, and transparency. Finally, they examine the art of the shadow, paying tribute to artists' exploration of shadow, analyzing a series of artworks (reproduced in color) from a rich and fascinating art historical corpus.

Shadows

Shadows PDF Author: Roberto Casati
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375707115
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In this original, wide-ranging, and endlessly thought-provoking work of popular nonfiction, a leading science writer uncovers the pervasive presence of shadows in our world. For Plato, shadows were the symbol of our limitations. For Galileo, they knocked the Earth from the center of the cosmos. They are a source of fear and a symbol of ignorance, and they loom large in art and design, mythology and folklore, physics and metaphysics, and architecture and urban planning. From shadows puppets and the psychology of shadows to the role of shadows in astronomy and the influence of shadows on the architectural profiles of our cities, Roberto Casati awakens our fascination in this tour-de-force of investigation and imagination.

Shadows of a Fleeting World

Shadows of a Fleeting World PDF Author: David Francis Martin
Publisher: Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies
ISBN: 9780295990859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
"In association with University of Washington Libraries and the Henry Art Gallery."

Parts and Places

Parts and Places PDF Author: Roberto Casati
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262032667
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? In this book Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay betwen mereology (the study of part/whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and comapctness) and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions such as: Are parts essential to their whole? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps.

The Visual Mind II

The Visual Mind II PDF Author: Michele Emmer
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262050760
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 742

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Book Description
"This collection of essays by artists and mathematicians continues the discussion of the connections between art and mathematics begun in the widely read first volume of The Visual Mind in 1993."--BOOK JACKET.

The Big Book of Concepts

The Big Book of Concepts PDF Author: Gregory Murphy
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262632993
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Concepts embody our knowledge of the kinds of things there are in the world. Tying our past experiences to our present interactions with the environment, they enable us to recognize and understand new objects and events. Concepts are also relevant to understanding domains such as social situations, personality types, and even artistic styles. Yet like other phenomenologically simple cognitive processes such as walking or understanding speech, concept formation and use are maddeningly complex. Research since the 1970s and the decline of the "classical view" of concepts have greatly illuminated the psychology of concepts. But persistent theoretical disputes have sometimes obscured this progress. The Big Book of Concepts goes beyond those disputes to reveal the advances that have been made, focusing on the major empirical discoveries. By reviewing and evaluating research on diverse topics such as category learning, word meaning, conceptual development in infants and children, and the basic level of categorization, the book develops a much broader range of criteria than is usual for evaluating theories of concepts.

Real-Time Shadows

Real-Time Shadows PDF Author: Elmar Eisemann
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1439867690
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Important elements of games, movies, and other computer-generated content, shadows are crucial for enhancing realism and providing important visual cues. In recent years, there have been notable improvements in visual quality and speed, making high-quality realistic real-time shadows a reachable goal. Real-Time Shadows is a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of real-time shadow techniques. It covers a large variety of different effects, including hard, soft, volumetric, and semi-transparent shadows. The book explains the basics as well as many advanced aspects related to the domain of shadow computation. It presents interactive solutions and practical details on shadow computation. The authors compare various algorithms for creating real-time shadows and illustrate how they are used in different situations. They explore the limitations and failure cases, advantages and disadvantages, and suitability of the algorithms in several applications. Source code, videos, tutorials, and more are available on the book’s website www.realtimeshadows.com.

Virtual World Design

Virtual World Design PDF Author: Ann Latham Cudworth
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466579668
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Learn How to Create Immersive Virtual Environments Written by an award-winning designer with 20 years of experience designing virtual environments for television and online communities, Virtual World Design explores the intertwining disciplines of 2D graphics, 3D models, lighting, sound, and storytelling. It illustrates how these disciplines come together by design in the creation of an accessible virtual environment for teaching, research, and entertainment. The book gives anyone the tools and techniques to design virtual environments that support their message and are accessible by all. With 200 illustrations and 12 step-by-step projects, the book delivers hours of creative challenges for people working in public virtual worlds or on private grids. Using the modular components available for download on the author’s website, readers learn by building such things as a virtual classroom, an "all-access" terrain, and a sound-based game. This book can be the foundation for class work in distance learning, simulation, and other learning technologies that use virtual environments. It shows both novices and advanced users how 3D composition, color, lighting, and sound design are used in the creation of an immersive virtual environment.

Geometry of Shadows

Geometry of Shadows PDF Author: Giorgio De Chirico
Publisher: Public Space Books, A
ISBN: 9780998267548
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
Gathered from early twentieth-century Italian magazines, manuscripts, correspondence, television recordings, and ephemeral art volumes, Geometry of Shadows is the first comprehensive collection of Giorgio de Chirico's Italian poetry, with award-winning poet Stefania Heim's translations presented alongside the Italian originals.