Effects of Rendering on Shape Perception in Automobile Design
Abstract/Summary
The goal of this project was to determine if advanced rendering methods such as global illumination allow more accurate discrimination of shape differences than standard rendering methods such as OpenGL.
To address these questions, we conducted two psychophysical experiments to measure observers’ sensitivity to shape differences between a physical model and rendered images of the model.
Two results stand out:
- The rendering method used has a significant effect on the
ability to discriminate shape. In particular, under the
conditions tested, global illumination rendering improves
sensitivity to shape differences. - Further, viewpoint appears to have an effect on the ability to
discriminate shape. In most of the cases studied, sensitivity to
small shape variations was poorer when the rendering and
model viewpoints were different.
The results of this work have important implications for our
understanding of human shape perception and for the
development of rendering tools for computer-aided design.