How the Dictionary of Perspective was researched, compiled and organised.
The Dictionary of Perspective is the product of many years of research into the terminology, history, theory and applications of visual, optical and technical perspective. It brings together approximately 4,000 terms, including about 1,200 named types and forms of perspective, ranging from established historical terminology to specialist scientific, technical and emerging digital concepts.
Perspective presents an unusual lexicographical problem. The subject crosses art, optics, geometry, architecture, visual perception, photography, surveying, cinema, computer graphics, imaging and New Media. Different disciplines may use different names for the same concept, while a single term may refer to several different methods, processes, systems, phenomena or image forms. The Dictionary was therefore conceived not simply as a list of definitions, but as a linked terminology and classification system.
Research foundations
The principal research base for the Dictionary is the Perspective Research Centre and its specialist collections.
A central resource has been the Library of Perspective, assembled over several decades. At the time the first edition was prepared, it contained approximately 5,000 catalogued physical volumes together with extensive digital holdings, papers, articles, theses, treatises and other research material concerned with perspective, optics, visual perception, imaging, representation and related subjects.
The first edition of the Dictionary records particularly directly that definitions for most terms were researched through this specialist library and thousands of related papers and articles.
A second major foundation is the work of Professor Kim H. Veltman, whose historical research into perspective, optics, Leonardo da Vinci and the visual dimensions of science and art extends across hundreds of publications. His writings, archive, bibliographical work and long-term research provided an important intellectual foundation for the Dictionary.
The Bibliography of Perspective
The Dictionary also builds upon the extensive Bibliography of Perspective, developed initially by Luigi Vagnetti and subsequently expanded over many decades by Kim Veltman.
That bibliography ultimately grew to approximately 15,000 titles. Its development involved consultation of library catalogues, books and manuscripts across numerous major collections and institutions and provides an unusually extensive map of the historical literature of perspective.
The selected bibliography printed in the second edition represents only a small proportion of the material behind the Dictionary. The wider research base includes publications, archival documents, specialist research collections, technical sources and many additional books, papers, treatises and online resources cited within individual entries.
Range of sources
No single discipline contains the vocabulary necessary to describe perspective in its full scope. Sources have consequently been drawn from many fields.
These include historical and theoretical studies of perspective; drawing and architectural representation; geometry and projective systems; optics and visual perception; photography and optical instruments; panoramas and optical entertainments; stereoscopic imaging and cinema; computer graphics and computer vision; spatial displays; virtual reality; and other emerging technologies.
The aim is not simply to reproduce the terminology of one established tradition, but to identify relationships between vocabularies that have often developed separately in art, science and technology.
How terms were selected
The Dictionary includes established contemporary terms alongside historical, uncommon and obsolete terminology where those terms help explain the development of the subject or connect ideas across disciplines.
It does not, however, treat every word associated with vision, space or images as a perspective term. Its scope is centred on the principles, methods, processes and systems through which spatial reality is viewed, imaged, projected, transformed or represented.
Topics such as general eye anatomy, visual psychology, mathematical transformations unrelated to visual images and metaphorical uses of the word perspective are included only where they directly illuminate the visual, optical, spatial or technical meanings of perspective.
This combination of breadth and defined boundaries is important. The objective is comprehensive coverage of the field of perspective rather than unrestricted collection of every neighbouring concept.
Writing and evaluating definitions
Definitions were not produced by mechanically copying a single authority.
The research process involved comparison between specialist books, historical treatises, academic papers, reference works, archival documents and other sources. Where disciplines used different terminology or supplied conflicting definitions, these accounts were compared and interpreted within the wider conceptual framework of the Dictionary.
The first edition states that most definitions were ultimately formulated by the author following this research, while additions or changes to established terminology were specifically identified.
The second edition formalises this methodology: definitions are evaluated within the Dictionary’s overall conceptual system and, wherever possible, compared across multiple sources and disciplines.
The result is therefore an editorial synthesis rather than a compilation of quotations.
Online resources, computational tools and AI
Online resources and computational tools have also assisted the research process, particularly for discovery, comparison and checking.
The first edition explicitly records that a small number of definitions were informed by online encyclopaedias and AI-based tools, while also stating that such information was not trusted without corroboration.
The second edition expresses the same principle more generally: online and computational tools may assist research, but definitions are evaluated against the wider evidence base and compared with other sources and disciplines wherever possible.
Accordingly, online or AI-generated material is not treated as an independent authority for Dictionary definitions.
Synonyms, competing names and cross-references
Perspective has accumulated an exceptionally complicated vocabulary. A single concept can possess several contemporary or historical names, while apparently identical terms can describe quite different things.
The Dictionary therefore records, where appropriate:
- synonyms and near-synonyms;
- antonyms;
- preferred terminology;
- historical names;
- variant spellings;
- related concepts;
- broader and narrower meanings;
- numbered senses and subentries;
- See and See also references.
Definitions may deliberately appear under more than one headword where repetition makes the Dictionary substantially easier to consult.
British spelling is used throughout. The Dictionary is not primarily an etymological dictionary, although historical usage is included where it assists understanding. Books, papers, authors and websites are cited within entries where they provide useful routes for further research.
New and refined terminology
Established terminology is retained wherever it adequately describes a concept.
Perspective nevertheless contains many phenomena and relationships for which existing terminology is ambiguous, inconsistent or absent. In such cases the Dictionary may employ the labels:
NEW TERM
REFINED TERM
NEW / REFINED TERM
These labels indicate that a definition, classification or usage goes beyond standard accounts. They do not necessarily claim that no related idea has ever appeared previously.
The second edition contains more than 200 concepts, classifications and distinctions introduced or formalised as part of the wider effort to establish a coherent vocabulary for the field.
Classification and Perspective Category Theory
The Dictionary is also organised conceptually through Perspective Category Theory.
This is important because many terminological problems arise from confusing fundamentally different things. The same word may identify a method, process, instrument, system, image, form, phenomenon or outcome.
The Dictionary therefore uses categorical distinctions to identify the relevant meaning of an entry and to show how different perspective concepts relate to one another. Definitions should be considered together with their category labels, qualifiers, related entries and cross-references rather than treating every headword as an isolated definition.
This systematic approach is one of the principal differences between the Dictionary of Perspective and a conventional glossary.
A developing reference work
The Dictionary is intended to be authoritative, but not immutable.
Perspective is a very large and continually developing field. New imaging systems, computational techniques, scientific research and forms of visual media continue to create new terminology and sometimes require older classifications to be reconsidered.
Definitions and classifications may therefore be refined or extended as additional evidence, technologies and usages emerge and as further volumes of The Art and Science of Perspective examine individual areas in greater depth.
Corrections, alternative sources, additions and omissions remain part of the continuing editorial process.
The goal of the Dictionary of Perspective is not merely to collect the vocabulary of perspective, but to clarify, connect and organise it into a coherent body of knowledge.