Simulating animal vision?
So, I've heard the anecdote that if a person lives long enough upside down, the brain eventually flips the view, allowing the person to comprehend the world in this new orientation. If we use OR t...
Forum Discussion
I did research in acoustics and one thing that always interested me was simulating animal hearing and vision.
As dogs have ears that are oriented differently and can even move... think of this -
our ears are set in place. We don't have to live process position of sound relative to position/orientation of our ears.
Movable ears adds a lot of needed brain computational power.
In my research I used highspeed (think super slow motion) cameras to observe the plucking of harpsichord strings.
I used those cameras to film alot of things though and my thoughts from how animals deal with sound input led me to think of animal vision also. This also has been an interest of mine.
One thing to consider in animal vision is the brain processing. For instance... does a duck with eyes on opposite sides of head process one image from the two? I don't think it see's in stereo. Is it actually paying attention to two seperate viewports into the real world or somehow integrating them into one in a different way than we do.
Insects - with compound eyes and many of them (sometimes) how can this method of vision be simulated and explored. Lots of fun there.
Speed of vision in other animals - a hawk or eagle have very sharp vision. They must therefore process images much faster than us or in a different way. A hawk or eagle can see prey on ground from far away... that is some serious resolution! Say we have for sake of argument 5 megapixel eyes... then these birds must have closer to 20 megapixel eyes (effectively at least).
They must not only process these images quickly to pick out the prey... but they attack and dive so fast that they must be able to process moving images very quickly also! Therefore birds might see "faster" than humans as well as at higher resolution and also a different eye positioning.
It's amazing to see small birds and insects look around when viewed in slow motion. You can see the thinking and processing is going on in those tiny brains. To us at human speeds they seem to just skitter around and bounce about spastically... but they do interpret vision and stuff very quickly and adjust movements very accurately. Just soo darned fast to us that we cant relate. At 1200 fps a wasp can be seen to look where it is placing it's next front foot step... and carefully placing and establishing a good foothold.
POINT IS! - if you want to simulate animal vision... think about adjusting the virtual world in your simulation to perceiving time faster or slower depending on how the animal might process visual information differently than humans.
Good example. If birds and insects see "faster" than us... our 30 and 60 hz tv's probably look like a slow slide show to them. Old incandescent bulbs and florescent lights could be seen to pulse at AC frequencies... barely fast enough to fool humans into thinking they are steady constant brightness lights... but with faster animal vision and our light bulbs look like pulsing lights!
Imagine a insect vision simulation where time is adjusted... humans would be SO slow... not to mention their technology! TV's would look really weird as they refreshed the images so slow and all human light would pulse on and off all the time! Even LED's would flicker as they are usually PWM'ed and outdoor LED displays would look a mess!
If there is interest in some video about vision perception and time... I can film some stuff and post it.
Good idea though... i likey a lot!
As dogs have ears that are oriented differently and can even move... think of this -
our ears are set in place. We don't have to live process position of sound relative to position/orientation of our ears.
Movable ears adds a lot of needed brain computational power.
In my research I used highspeed (think super slow motion) cameras to observe the plucking of harpsichord strings.
I used those cameras to film alot of things though and my thoughts from how animals deal with sound input led me to think of animal vision also. This also has been an interest of mine.
One thing to consider in animal vision is the brain processing. For instance... does a duck with eyes on opposite sides of head process one image from the two? I don't think it see's in stereo. Is it actually paying attention to two seperate viewports into the real world or somehow integrating them into one in a different way than we do.
Insects - with compound eyes and many of them (sometimes) how can this method of vision be simulated and explored. Lots of fun there.
Speed of vision in other animals - a hawk or eagle have very sharp vision. They must therefore process images much faster than us or in a different way. A hawk or eagle can see prey on ground from far away... that is some serious resolution! Say we have for sake of argument 5 megapixel eyes... then these birds must have closer to 20 megapixel eyes (effectively at least).
They must not only process these images quickly to pick out the prey... but they attack and dive so fast that they must be able to process moving images very quickly also! Therefore birds might see "faster" than humans as well as at higher resolution and also a different eye positioning.
It's amazing to see small birds and insects look around when viewed in slow motion. You can see the thinking and processing is going on in those tiny brains. To us at human speeds they seem to just skitter around and bounce about spastically... but they do interpret vision and stuff very quickly and adjust movements very accurately. Just soo darned fast to us that we cant relate. At 1200 fps a wasp can be seen to look where it is placing it's next front foot step... and carefully placing and establishing a good foothold.
POINT IS! - if you want to simulate animal vision... think about adjusting the virtual world in your simulation to perceiving time faster or slower depending on how the animal might process visual information differently than humans.
Good example. If birds and insects see "faster" than us... our 30 and 60 hz tv's probably look like a slow slide show to them. Old incandescent bulbs and florescent lights could be seen to pulse at AC frequencies... barely fast enough to fool humans into thinking they are steady constant brightness lights... but with faster animal vision and our light bulbs look like pulsing lights!
Imagine a insect vision simulation where time is adjusted... humans would be SO slow... not to mention their technology! TV's would look really weird as they refreshed the images so slow and all human light would pulse on and off all the time! Even LED's would flicker as they are usually PWM'ed and outdoor LED displays would look a mess!
If there is interest in some video about vision perception and time... I can film some stuff and post it.
Good idea though... i likey a lot!