Visual Perspective Type 1 is the broad class of visible perspective appearances, views, images and representations, whether encountered directly or produced through natural, optical, graphical, instrument, simulated or digital processes.
It is the wider of the two meanings of Visual Perspective used by the Perspective Research Centre. Visual Perspective Type 2 concerns perspective as formed and experienced through the human or animal visual system, whereas Type 1 includes the full range of visible perspective appearances and representations.
Definition
Visual Perspective Type 1 encompasses any visible perspective outcome that can be seen, inspected or visually interpreted.
It therefore includes:
- naturally occurring visible appearances;
- optical images;
- retinal and visual appearances;
- drawings and paintings;
- photographs;
- film and video images;
- projected images;
- instrument-generated views;
- computer-generated images;
- simulated environments;
- digital displays;
- and other visible representations.
The defining feature is not the means by which the image or appearance was produced, but that it exists as a visible perspective appearance or representation.
Relationship to Visual Perspective Type 2
Visual Perspective Type 2 is contained within Visual Perspective Type 1.
Type 2 concerns the perspective formed and experienced through the human or animal visual system. It includes the optical, retinal, physiological and perceptual processes through which spatial reality becomes visual experience.
Type 1 is broader because it also includes visible images and representations that are not themselves human perception, including paintings, photographs, films, displays and projected images.
Visual Perspective Type 1 = all visible perspective appearances and representations
Visual Perspective Type 2 = visual perspective formed and experienced through a biological visual system
All Type 2 belongs within Type 1, but not all Type 1 belongs within Type 2.
A Broad Visual Category
Visual Perspective Type 1 cuts across several major perspective processes.
A visible perspective appearance may arise through:
Natural Perspective — changes in the appearance of physical spatial reality with viewpoint, distance, illumination, atmosphere and orientation.
Optical Perspective — images and appearances formed through the behaviour of light, including reflection, refraction and optical imaging.
Graphical Perspective — visible spatial representations constructed through drawing, projection or other graphical methods.
Instrument Perspective — views and images generated or mediated by optical, photographic, scientific or technical instruments.
Simulated Perspective — perspective appearances produced through simulation.
New Media Perspective — digitally generated, interactive, immersive or computational forms of visible perspective.
These processes may differ greatly in origin and method, but their results can all enter the domain of Visual Perspective Type 1 when they produce a visible appearance or representation.
From Physical Reality to Visible Appearance
Visible perspective does not arise from a single process.
A physical scene may be seen directly, optically imaged, photographed, drawn, projected, simulated or digitally reconstructed. Each process transforms spatial information in a different way.
For direct human vision, the sequence may be described as:
Physical space → Natural Perspective → Optical Perspective → retinal image → Visual Perspective Type 2 → perceived visual space
This sequence shows how one form of Visual Perspective Type 1 — human visual experience — develops through physical, optical, retinal and perceptual stages.
Other Type 1 appearances may follow different chains.
For example, a photograph may involve:
Physical scene → camera optics → Instrument Perspective → image processing → displayed image → human vision
The viewer then encounters both the physical image surface and the represented spatial world within it.
Direct and Represented Visual Perspective
Visual Perspective Type 1 therefore includes both:
direct visible appearance — the appearance of physical spatial reality to an observer;
and
represented visible appearance — a visible image or representation produced through graphical, optical, photographic, cinematic, digital or other means.
These two forms should not be confused.
A physical object seen directly is not the same thing as a photograph, drawing or screen image of that object. Yet all can function as visible perspective appearances and therefore fall within the broader Type 1 category.
Viewing Represented Images
When a person views a drawing, photograph, film or screen, several perspective processes may operate in sequence.
The viewer may simultaneously perceive:
- the physical surface of the image;
- the viewpoint implied by the representation;
- the apparent spatial world within the image;
- and the real environment surrounding the image.
This layered visual experience is fundamental to drawing, painting, photography, cinema, computer graphics, virtual reality and other representational systems.
Visual Perspective Type 1 provides a category broad enough to include all of these visible outcomes without treating them as though they were identical processes.
Visual Perspective and Representation
A major purpose of distinguishing Visual Perspective Type 1 is to separate the visible result from the particular process that produced it.
The same broad visual domain may contain appearances created by natural viewing, optical imaging, graphical construction, photography, scientific imaging, computation, simulation, projection, virtual reality and other forms of visual representation.
The processes differ, but they ultimately produce something capable of being visually encountered.
Visual Perspective Type 1 therefore acts as a connecting category between perspective as a physical or technical process and perspective as a visible outcome.
Relationship to Perspective Category Theory
Within Perspective Category Theory (PCT), Visual Perspective Type 1 occupies a high-level position because it encompasses visible perspective appearances across several subordinate technical and natural processes.
It provides the larger visual domain within which Optical Perspective and Technical Perspective can be related to the visible outcomes they generate.
Visual Perspective Type 2 is a more specialised case concerned specifically with biological vision.
The distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 prevents the term visual perspective from being restricted either to human perception alone or, conversely, to images and representations alone.
Why Visual Perspective Type 1 Matters
Visual Perspective Type 1 provides a common framework for understanding visible perspective across natural vision, graphical representation, photography, cinema, optical imaging, scientific visualisation, computer graphics, digital media, virtual reality and other systems concerned with visible spatial appearance.
It helps explain how very different perspective processes can produce results that all belong to the wider domain of visible perspective.
The distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 also makes it possible to separate the general class of visible perspective appearances from the specific physiological and perceptual processes through which humans and animals see them.