Orderable dimensions of visual texture for data display: orientation, size and contrast

ABSTRACT

Vision research relating to the human perception of texture is briefly reviewed with a view to arriving at the principal dimensions of visual texture useful for data display. The conclusion is that orientation, size (1/spatial frequency), and contrast (amplitude) are the primary orderable dimensions of texture. Data displayed using these texture parameters will be subject to similar distortions to those found when color is used. Textures synthesized using Gabor function primitives can be modulated along the three primary dimensions. Some preliminary results from a study using Gabor functions to modulate luminance are presented which suggest that: perceived texture size difference are approximately logarithmic, a 5% change in texton size is detectable 50% of the time, and large perceived size differences do not predict small (just noticeable) size differences.

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Index Terms

• Computing methodologies

  • Artificial intelligence

    • Computer vision

      • Computer vision representations

        • Appearance and texture representations

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • HCI theory, concepts and models

  • Interaction design

    • Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms