Digital Perspective refers to a digital perspective view, image or model of spatial reality created from, transformed from, or projected from a physical, optical, instrument, imaginary, mathematical, graphical or other New Media perspective source.
It encompasses far more than the computer generation of a conventional perspective drawing. Digital Perspective can involve the capture, conversion, processing, modelling, transformation, linking, reconstruction, projection, display and exploration of spatial images and environments.
Within Perspective Category Theory, Digital Perspective is closely associated with the broader category of New Media Perspective, which includes digital imaging, computer graphics, computer vision, artificial intelligence, networked visual systems, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and interactive three-dimensional environments.
Definition of Digital Perspective
The Dictionary defines Digital Perspective as a digital perspective view, image or model of spatial reality created from, or projected from, another physical, instrument, imaginary, mathematical, graphical or New Media perspective view, image or model.
The concept therefore concerns both the digital form of the resulting perspective representation and the transformations through which spatial information becomes digital.
A digital perspective image may originate entirely inside a computer, but it may equally originate from photography, scanning, surveying, mathematical modelling, graphical drawing, scientific imaging or another source before being converted into digital form.
Digital Perspective and New Media Perspective
New Media Perspective is the broader Perspective Category Theory category for perspective generated, processed, displayed, linked or explored through computational and electronic media.
It includes:
- digital imaging;
- computer graphics;
- Computer-Generated Imagery;
- Computer-Aided Design;
- computer vision;
- artificial intelligence;
- networked imaging;
- Internet-based visual systems;
- Virtual Reality;
- Augmented Reality;
- Mixed Reality;
- Extended Reality;
- interactive 3-D environments; and
- digital display and projection systems.
Digital Perspective therefore belongs within this larger computational and electronic field but provides a useful name for the specifically digital view, image, model or spatial representation.
Digital and Computer Perspective
The Dictionary also uses the combined expression Computer / Digital Perspective because the two concepts overlap extensively.
Computer Perspective particularly emphasises the computational systems and processes used to create, analyse and manipulate spatial models and images.
Digital Perspective places greater emphasis upon the resulting digital view, image, model or spatial representation and the digital transformations through which it has been produced.
A perspective image can therefore be simultaneously computer-generated and digital without the two terms needing to describe precisely the same aspect of the process.
Digital Perspective as Method and Outcome
Digital Perspective illustrates the broader principle that:
Perspective = Method or Process + Resulting Image, View or Spatial Appearance.
The term can therefore describe a method through which perspective information is digitally processed or generated, and it can also describe the resulting digital perspective image, view, model or environment.
From Spatial Reality to Digital Perspective
Digital Perspective can originate from many different forms of spatial reality.
A physical scene can be captured by an optical instrument, converted into digital information, processed mathematically, combined with graphical or computer-generated elements and finally displayed through another electronic or optical system.
Alternatively, a spatial reality can originate entirely within an imaginary or mathematical model and have no previous physical form.
Digital Perspective is therefore not defined by one particular source of spatial reality. Its defining feature is the transformation or existence of the perspective view, image or model within digital media.
Digital Reality
The Dictionary defines Digital Reality as a digital view, image or model of spatial reality created from, or projected from, a physical, instrument, imaginary, mathematical, graphical or New Media spatial reality.
Digital Reality may therefore represent an existing physical environment, a designed object, a reconstructed scene, a mathematical model or an entirely imaginary world.
Digital Perspective concerns the views and perspective relationships through which such Digital Reality is represented, explored or transformed.
Digital Space
Digital Space is a digitally represented spatial reality created from, or projected from, physical, instrument, mathematical, graphical, imaginary or New Media space.
It can be two-dimensional or three-dimensional and can contain images, models, mapped coordinates, viewpoints, objects and other spatial information.
Digital Space therefore provides the spatial domain within which many forms of Digital Perspective can be generated and explored.
The Digital Image
A digital perspective image converts spatial and visual information into digitally encoded form.
The image can be captured directly through a digital imaging instrument, generated computationally, scanned from an earlier graphical or photographic representation or constructed by combining several different sources.
Once represented digitally, perspective information can be copied, measured, transformed, enlarged, reduced, linked, transmitted, analysed and displayed in ways that are difficult or impossible with a single fixed physical image.
Raster or Bitmap Images
Raster or Bitmap Graphics are digital images composed of a grid of pixels, each containing colour information.
Raster images are widely used for photographs and other digital visual representations.
Important properties include:
- pixel resolution;
- colour values;
- bit depth;
- image dimensions; and
- the effects of enlargement and pixelation.
A raster perspective image therefore possesses both geometrical perspective relationships and a finite digital sampling structure.
Vector Graphics
Vector Graphics provide a different form of digital image construction.
Instead of being defined principally as a grid of pixels, vector images are constructed from mathematically specified points, lines, paths and shapes.
Because their geometrical elements are mathematically defined, vector graphics can generally be rescaled without the same form of pixel enlargement associated with raster images.
Vector methods are therefore especially useful for diagrams, technical graphics, computer-generated illustrations and geometrically constructed perspective images.
Digital Perspective and Resolution
Digital media introduce explicit relationships between scale, image resolution and visible detail.
A digital image contains a finite amount of stored or generated visual information. Enlarging its display does not necessarily create additional object-space information.
Digital Perspective must therefore distinguish between the apparent scale at which an image is displayed and the level of spatial or visual detail actually contained within it.
Digital Scale and Zooming
One of the characteristic capabilities of digital perspective systems is the ability to move rapidly through different scales.
A user can enlarge or reduce a digital map, photograph, technical drawing, model or other perspective representation while remaining within the same underlying information system.
This ability to navigate through multiple scales is fundamental to modern GIS, mapping, computer modelling, digital image analysis and interactive visual environments.
Digital Image Processing
Once an image exists in digital form, its perspective properties can be computationally processed and transformed.
Possible operations include changes of:
- scale;
- shape;
- position;
- orientation;
- projection geometry;
- image proportions;
- colour;
- contrast;
- resolution; and
- the relationships between separate image elements.
Digital Perspective therefore permits existing images to be transformed as well as entirely new perspective images to be created.
Digital Post-Production
The Dictionary defines Digital Post-Production Techniques as the addition, alteration or integration of digital visual effects after principal photography or image capture.
A photographic or cinematic perspective image may therefore be transformed substantially after the original optical image has been formed.
Digital post-production can introduce new graphical or computer-generated Forms, combine several images, alter image geometry or create a composite spatial environment.
Digital Perspective Correction
Digital image processing can also be used for Perspective Correction.
Projective warping can alter effects such as converging verticals or other orientation relationships within an image.
The Dictionary distinguishes such digital projective correction from optical lens correction. Lens correction addresses optical departures from the intended lens projection, whereas digital perspective correction can alter the projective geometry of the image itself.
Such correction may involve cropping, resampling or changes of image proportions.
Digital Perspective and 3-D Modelling
A major form of Digital Perspective is the creation of a three-dimensional digital model.
The Dictionary describes 3-D computer modelling as the development of a mathematical coordinate-based representation of the visible surfaces of a spatial object through edges, vertices, polygons and related structures within 3-D image or model space.
Once the digital spatial model exists, many different perspective views can be generated from it without reconstructing the underlying object for each view.
Computer-Aided Design
Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is an important application of Digital Perspective.
CAD systems create and manipulate digital spatial geometry and can generate plans, elevations, parallel projections, linear-perspective images, multi-view representations and other spatial views from the same underlying model.
Perspective therefore becomes part of an interactive design and modelling process rather than merely the final representation of a completed object.
Computer-Generated Imagery
Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) creates digital perspective images from computer-modelled objects, scenes and environments.
CGI can employ geometrical perspective, surface models, lighting, colour, texture, reflection, shadow and other visual features in order to construct an image of a digital spatial reality.
The resulting image may resemble photography closely or may intentionally employ more abstract, technical or unusual perspective forms.
Digital Ray Tracing
Ray Tracing provides a computational method for modelling light within digital spatial environments.
Computer ray tracing can simulate reflections, refractions, shadows and indirect lighting within a model and use these calculations to produce the final rendered perspective image.
Digital Perspective can therefore model optical facets as well as geometrical perspective relationships.
Digital Perspective and Mathematical Perspective
Digital Perspective frequently depends upon Mathematical Perspective.
Volume 1 describes Mathematical Perspective as the application of algorithmic rules to transform or accurately model the appearance of scene or object geometry.
Digital systems can use such rules to control properties including:
- scale;
- distance;
- depth;
- Field of View;
- shape;
- orientation;
- colour;
- spatial resolution; and
- projection geometry.
A digital perspective image may therefore belong simultaneously to Mathematical Perspective and New Media Perspective.
Digital Perspective and Graphical Perspective
Digital media can reproduce or transform the geometrical forms traditionally associated with Graphical Perspective.
A digital image can contain linear perspective, parallel projection, axonometric perspective, oblique projection, curvilinear perspective, spherical perspective and many other graphical forms.
The use of a digital medium therefore does not replace the underlying perspective geometry. It changes the medium and methods through which that geometry can be generated, stored, transformed and displayed.
Digital Perspective Is Not One Projection Method
Digital Perspective should not be confused with one particular geometrical projection system.
A digital system can employ:
- central projection;
- linear or rectilinear perspective;
- parallel projection;
- orthographic projection;
- axonometric perspective;
- oblique perspective;
- curvilinear perspective;
- cylindrical perspective;
- spherical perspective;
- panoramic perspective;
- multi-view perspective; or
- computationally transformed projection systems.
Digital Perspective describes the digital mode or representation, not one universal geometry.
Digital Perspective and Photography
A digital photograph provides a particularly clear example of several perspective categories operating together.
The physical scene first possesses its own natural and optical conditions. A camera forms an optical and instrument image. A digital sensor converts the resulting information into digital form, after which the image can be computationally stored, processed, transmitted and displayed.
The final photograph is then observed through Visual Perspective Type 2.
A seemingly simple digital photograph can therefore belong to a long chain of perspective processes rather than to one isolated category.
Digital Perspective and Cinema
Digital filmmaking greatly expands the number of transformations that can occur between image capture and final viewing.
Live-action photography can be combined with CGI, digital compositing, visual effects, virtual environments and other computer-generated image elements.
The resulting moving image may therefore combine physical, photographic, optical, graphical and digital perspective processes within one scene.
Virtual Production
Virtual Production provides a particularly clear example of contemporary Digital Perspective.
Physical actors and sets can be combined with digitally generated environments displayed upon large LED surfaces. Game engines can render those environments in real time while camera tracking coordinates changing viewpoint and perspective.
The physical and digital components can therefore operate interactively within one composite perspective environment.
Digital Perspective and Computer Vision
Digital Perspective also operates in the reverse direction through Computer Vision.
Instead of merely creating an image from spatial data, a computer-vision system analyses images or video in order to identify objects, scenes, positions, processes and other information about spatial reality.
Volume 1 identifies applications including object detection, image classification, facial recognition, robotic vision, spatial awareness and navigation.
Digital perspective images therefore become data from which further spatial knowledge can be extracted.
Digital Reconstruction of Spatial Reality
Digital systems can reconstruct aspects of three-dimensional spatial reality from captured perspective information.
Several views of an object or environment can be compared in order to estimate spatial structure, camera positions and relationships between scene elements.
The resulting representation can take the form of a 3-D model, point cloud, digital elevation model or other digital spatial structure from which new views can subsequently be generated.
Digital Perspective and Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence introduces additional ways of generating, analysing and transforming Digital Perspective.
Volume 1 identifies applications including:
- generation of perspective views and images;
- generation of novel viewpoints;
- automatic object identification;
- classification of image databases;
- analysis of perspective images;
- reverse-engineering of scene and object geometry;
- integration of large numbers of images into linked image spaces;
- navigation of perspective images; and
- robotic interpretation of visual environments.
Artificial Intelligence therefore extends both the constructive and analytical capabilities of Digital Perspective.
Novel Digital Viewpoints
Unlike a fixed photograph, a sufficiently developed digital spatial model can generate perspective views from positions different from those originally captured.
The user or computer system can therefore move around, above, below or through the represented object or environment and calculate a corresponding new view.
This capability represents a major extension of perspective from a single fixed image towards a navigable model of spatial reality.
Multi-View Digital Perspective
New Media systems make it possible to connect and explore large numbers of perspective views within one digital environment.
Volume 1 describes advanced New Media systems in which multiple views can be connected, linked, ordered, constructed, matched, mixed, overlaid, explored and cross-matched.
The result can be a form of multi-view perspective in which spatial reality is no longer represented by one isolated viewpoint.
Multi-Time Digital Perspective
Digital media can also combine or compare perspective information captured or generated at different times.
A digital spatial environment can therefore contain historical, present, simulated or predicted views of the same object or scene.
This expands perspective from the representation of one viewpoint at one moment into a system capable of linking spatial appearances across time.
Multi-Scale Digital Perspective
Digital systems can similarly organise perspective information across many spatial scales.
A user may move from a very large geographical view towards progressively smaller regions, structures and details while remaining within a connected digital information system.
GIS, digital maps, scientific imaging and complex computer models demonstrate the importance of this multi-scale capability.
Geographical Information Systems
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are an important application of Digital Perspective.
GIS can combine maps, satellite information, geographical data, layers and changing scales within an interactive digital system.
Users can zoom between scales, activate different information layers and explore spatial relationships through digital views and representations.
Digital Perspective therefore contributes both to the visual representation of geographical space and to the organisation and exploration of spatial data.
GPS, Remote Sensing and Networked Imaging
Volume 1 includes GPS, remote sensing, satellite imaging, networked cameras and telescopes among the technologies associated with New Media Perspective.
These systems demonstrate how Digital Perspective can extend beyond a single computer or image.
Visual and spatial information can be captured in one location, transmitted across networks, combined with other information and displayed or analysed elsewhere.
Internet and Web-Based Perspective
The Internet has transformed the scale upon which digital perspective images can be distributed, linked and explored.
Images, maps, models, videos and interactive environments can be networked rather than existing as isolated representations.
New Media Perspective therefore includes not only the digital creation of images but their connection, communication, organisation and navigation.
Digital Perspective on Screens and Displays
A digital perspective image normally requires some form of display before it can become directly visible to a human observer.
Computer monitors, smartphones, digital television, projection systems, immersive displays and other New Media devices can present digitally generated or processed perspective images.
The display therefore forms another stage in the complete perspective system between Digital Perspective and final human visual perception.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality extends Digital Perspective into an interactive spatial environment that can be explored from changing viewpoints.
The displayed views can be generated or updated in real time according to the user’s changing position and Direction of Vision.
Perspective therefore changes dynamically as the observer moves through or looks around the digital environment.
Virtual Reality can additionally employ stereoscopic imagery, motion parallax and other depth information to strengthen the impression of spatial immersion.
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality combines digitally generated information with a view of physical reality.
A camera or other imaging system can capture the physical environment while software analyses the scene and overlays digital Forms or information onto the resulting view.
The digital elements must be related to the viewpoint, position, scale and orientation of the physical scene if they are to appear spatially integrated.
Mixed and Extended Reality
Mixed Reality and Extended Reality further develop the integration of physical and digital spatial environments.
Digital and physical images, objects and spatial relationships can coexist and interact within one visual system.
Such systems demonstrate why modern perspective can no longer be understood solely as a technique for creating one fixed picture on one flat surface.
Digital Metaverse
The Dictionary uses Digital Metaverse for the developing concept of persistent or interconnected virtual environments within which users can communicate, create and interact through digital representations.
Such environments can combine ordinary screens, computer models, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and networked three-dimensional spaces.
From the standpoint of perspective, the important development is the transition from isolated digital images towards persistent and navigable digital spatial worlds.
Digital Multiverse
The Dictionary also introduces the concept of a Digital Multiverse: multiple interconnected or coexisting virtual worlds, environments or simulations.
Such systems may also combine physical, simulated and imagined environments through Virtual, Augmented, Mixed or Extended Reality.
This represents another extension of perspective from one scene and one viewpoint towards networks of spatial realities and representations.
Digital Perspective and Computer Games
Computer games provide an important interactive application of Digital Perspective.
Modern games can use three-dimensional object geometry, linear or curvilinear perspective projection, ray tracing and moving virtual viewpoints to generate real-time spatial views.
First-person, second-person and third-person perspective arrangements can organise the relationship between the player, virtual camera, character and game world in different ways.
The perspective image is therefore recalculated continuously as the player or virtual viewpoint moves.
Digital Perspective and Category Chaining
Perspective Category Theory is particularly important for Digital Perspective because digital images commonly pass through several perspective categories.
A typical sequence might be:
Natural scene → Optical Perspective → Instrument Perspective → Digital / New Media processing → Instrument or New Media display → Visual Perspective Type 2.
The Dictionary describes the sequential operation of different categories as Category Chaining.
The final visible image can consequently be the product of several distinct transformations rather than one isolated act of projection.
Digital Perspective and Category Overloading
A digital perspective process can also belong legitimately to more than one perspective category at the same time.
For example, a digitally rendered linear-perspective image can be:
- Mathematical Perspective because mathematical projection rules govern the geometry;
- Graphical Perspective because a represented image of spatial reality is created; and
- New Media Perspective because it is generated and displayed computationally.
Perspective Category Theory calls this legitimate membership in several categories Category Overloading.
Digital Perspective and Composite Perspective
Digital media also make it comparatively easy to combine several perspective sources within one image, model or environment.
A cinematic scene can combine physical architecture, Camera Perspective, forced perspective, digital compositing and CGI. An Augmented Reality system can combine a live camera image with digitally generated Forms. A virtual production system can combine physical actors with a real-time computer-generated environment.
The resulting image or system may therefore form a Composite Perspective.
The Optical Image Chain
Digital Perspective is often best understood as one stage within a larger Optical Image Chain.
A view can originate within physical spatial reality, pass through an optical imaging system, be converted into digital data, undergo computational transformations, be displayed through another instrument and finally be perceived by a human observer.
Each stage can preserve, alter, add or transform particular perspective properties.
The final viewed image is therefore not necessarily identical in category or form to the original spatial scene from which the image chain began.
Digital Perspective Is Not Necessarily Artificial
The fact that an image exists digitally does not mean that its underlying spatial information is necessarily imaginary or artificially constructed.
A Digital Perspective can represent a physical scene captured by a camera or remote-sensing instrument just as easily as it can represent an entirely computer-generated world.
The origin of the spatial reality and the medium in which its perspective image is subsequently stored or processed are separate questions.
Digital Perspective Is Not Necessarily Photorealistic
A Digital Perspective does not have to imitate ordinary photography.
It may appear as:
- a photograph;
- a rendered CGI image;
- a wire-frame model;
- a technical drawing;
- a map;
- a diagram;
- a point cloud;
- a scientific visualisation;
- a digital elevation model;
- a virtual environment; or
- another digital spatial representation.
The required appearance depends upon the perspective function and application.
Functions of Digital Perspective
Digital Perspective can participate in all of the principal functions of perspective identified in Volume 1:
- View — capture, observe or present spatial reality;
- Match — measure, compare, classify and cross-match spatial information;
- Represent — copy, model, map, index, link and explore spatial reality;
- Illusion — construct a convincing alternative spatial appearance; and
- Immersion — create the impression that the observer occupies a represented spatial environment.
Digital systems are particularly powerful because several of these functions can operate within the same interactive perspective system.
Digital Perspective in Science and Technology
Volume 1 associates modern digital and computational perspective with a wide range of scientific and technical fields.
These include:
- Computer Graphics;
- Computer-Generated Imagery;
- Computer-Aided Design;
- Computer Vision;
- Geographical Information Systems;
- Global Positioning Systems;
- remote sensing;
- satellite imaging;
- medical imaging;
- robotics;
- artificial intelligence;
- digital filmmaking;
- Virtual Reality;
- Augmented Reality;
- scientific visualisation;
- navigation; and
- spatial modelling.
Perspective in these fields is not merely concerned with creating a visually attractive picture. It can be used for measurement, modelling, analysis, navigation, reconstruction, prediction and interaction with spatial information.
Common Misconceptions about Digital Perspective
- Digital Perspective is not simply Computer Perspective. The two overlap strongly, but Digital Perspective particularly concerns digital views, images, models and transformations.
- Digital Perspective is not a separate top-level Perspective Category. The broader principal category in Perspective Category Theory is New Media Perspective.
- Digital Perspective is not one particular projection method. Digital systems can employ linear, parallel, curvilinear, spherical and many other projection forms.
- A digital perspective image does not have to originate inside a computer. It can originate from physical, optical, instrument, graphical, mathematical or other sources.
- A digital image is not necessarily artificial or imaginary. It can represent directly captured physical spatial reality.
- Digital Perspective is not restricted to still images. It includes moving, interactive and navigable spatial representations.
- Digital Perspective is not necessarily photorealistic. Technical, graphical, mathematical and scientific representations can also be digital perspective forms.
- Digital Perspective does not replace traditional perspective geometry. Traditional linear, parallel, curvilinear and other perspective forms can be generated digitally.
- Digital processing can change perspective geometry. Projective warping, reconstruction and other transformations can alter the spatial relationships within an existing image.
- Digital Perspective can operate in both directions. Digital systems can generate perspective views from spatial models or analyse existing perspective images to infer spatial information.
- A digital perspective image may belong to several categories simultaneously. Mathematical, Graphical, Instrument and New Media Perspective can overlap.
- A digital perspective image often forms only one stage of a larger perspective system. Physical, optical, instrument, computational, display and perceptual processes can all contribute to the final view.
Why Digital Perspective Matters
Digital Perspective matters because digital technologies have transformed perspective from a predominantly fixed image-making process into a system for capturing, connecting, processing, modelling, transforming, analysing, navigating and exploring spatial reality.
One digital system can connect multiple viewpoints, scales and times; combine physical and artificial imagery; reconstruct spatial Form from captured views; generate new viewpoints; alter projection geometry; and provide interactive access to complex spatial models.
Digital Perspective therefore connects traditional perspective principles with many of the defining visual technologies of the contemporary world, including digital photography, Computer Graphics, CGI, CAD, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, GIS, digital filmmaking, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Extended Reality, interactive 3-D environments and networked visual media.
Understanding Digital Perspective provides a foundation for understanding Computer Perspective, New Media Perspective, Digital Reality, Digital Space, raster and vector graphics, digital image processing, perspective correction, 3-D modelling, CGI, CAD, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, multi-view perspective, multi-time perspective, multi-scale perspective, Category Chaining, Category Overloading, Composite Perspective and the Optical Image Chain.