Where are the Lights? Measuring the Accuracy of Human Vision

Abstract

In real life, light sources are frequently not present in our view field. However human vision is able to infer the illumination just by observing its effect on visible objects (serving as lightprobes) or, inverting the idea, it is able to spot an object which is incoherently lit in a composition. These lightprobes have been used by computer algorithms in the same manner to detect lights, mimicking the human visual system (HVS). It has been proved that the presence of shadows or highlights in the lightprobe affects the accuracy of HVS, although its degree of influence remains unbeknownst until now. The present work performs a psychophysical analysis which aims to provide accurate data for light detection, perception-oriented rendering, image compositing and augmented reality.