The Perspective Research Centre is a research and educational project dedicated to the study of perspective and the visual dimensions of art, science, and technology.
Our aim is to collect, organise, classify, and develop knowledge about perspective across many disciplines. This includes visual perspective, optical perspective, technical perspective, projection systems, spatial representation, image-making, visual media, scientific imaging, and emerging technologies.
A central part of our work is the development of Perspective Category Theory: a classification framework designed to organise the many forms, systems, applications, and concepts of perspective into a more coherent structure.
The long-term goal of the PRC is to support the emergence of perspective science: a broad interdisciplinary field concerned with how space is seen, represented, measured, transformed, and understood.
We seek to bring together historical and modern theories, methods, instruments, images, applications, and visual systems from both Western and non-Western traditions. By gathering and connecting this material, we aim to support research, education, creative practice, and technological innovation across the arts, sciences, humanities, and visual industries.
Dr Alan Radley FRSA | Scientific Director
alansradley@gmail.com
Perspective Research Centre
www.perspectiveresearchcentre.com
Origins
The Perspective Research Centre builds on more than four decades of research into perspective, visual knowledge, media, and the organisation of knowledge.
The PRC developed from three predecessor organisations associated with Professor Kim H. Veltman. The first was The Perspective Unit, where Veltman served as Scientific Director and where formal research on perspective began in 1990 as part of the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto.
This work later continued through the Maastricht McLuhan Institute for Digital Culture, Knowledge Organisation and Learning Technology between 1998 and 2004, and then through the Virtual Maastricht McLuhan Institute, which continued until Veltman’s death in 2020.
Legacy versions of these earlier websites are preserved here:
Kim Veltman
The Perspective Research Centre is deeply indebted to the work and legacy of Professor Kim H. Veltman (1948–2020).
Veltman was Scientific Director of the Virtual Maastricht McLuhan Institute and an influential scholar of perspective, visual knowledge, Leonardo da Vinci, media theory, culture, and the organisation of knowledge. He taught at the universities of Göttingen, Rome, and Carleton, served as Director of the Perspective Unit within the McLuhan Program in Toronto, and later directed the Maastricht McLuhan Institute.
His work connected art history, science, media, visual theory, and knowledge organisation. He studied perspective not as an isolated artistic method, but as part of a much larger history of seeing, representing, measuring, and communicating the world.
Veltman worked in intellectual contexts connected with major figures such as Marshall McLuhan, Ernst Gombrich, Kenneth Keele, and leading scholars of vision and the history of science. His lifelong aim was to understand knowledge in its broadest patterns and relationships, and to make those patterns useful across disciplines.
The PRC continues and develops this legacy by preserving, organising, and extending research into perspective and related fields.
An obituary on Kim appeared in Knowledge Organisation journal (47, 2020, No.6): Kim Veltman.pdf
Alan Radley
Alan Radley is the Scientific Director of the Perspective Research Centre.
He holds a PhD in Physics from University College London, where he later worked as a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of London Observatory. He has also worked as a research fellow at the Maastricht McLuhan Institute and as a scientist with NASA and the European Space Agency.
His work has included optical designs for cameras, telescopes, spectrographs, 3D displays, and systems intended to enhance human vision. He is the inventor of several patents, including one for the Hologram Mirror.
Alan has edited six computing handbooks, authored several books, contributed chapters to edited volumes, and published articles and conference papers. His earlier works include Self As Computer, The Science of Smart Things, and The Science of Cybersecurity, which was shortlisted for the National Cyber Security Book Awards in 2022.
He is currently developing The Art and Science of Perspective, a multi-volume series on visual and optical perspective. The first two completed volumes are The Past, Present and Future of Visual and Optical Perspective and the Dictionary of Perspective, which catalogues approximately 1,200 types and forms of perspective and more than 4,000 related terms.
Alan is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Partners and Support
The Perspective Research Centre and its predecessor organisations have benefited from the support of many institutions, organisations, colleagues, and sponsors.
Earlier work at the Perspective Unit and the Maastricht McLuhan Institute received support from universities and cultural institutions including Toronto, Cambridge, York, London, Göttingen, Rome, Carleton, and Maastricht.
Additional support and collaboration came from organisations and institutions including the Wellcome and Warburg Institutes, Bell Labs, Nortel Networks, the Vatican, the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, the Herzog August Bibliothek, the European Union E-Culture Network, the Province of Ontario, the Wellcome Trust, the Volkswagen Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Thyssen Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Autodesk, the Information Technology Research Centre, the Canadian Heritage Information Network, Cultech, and the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto.
This support helped make possible the creation of major resources on perspective, visual knowledge, media, and knowledge organisation.
People and Acknowledgements
The Perspective Research Centre is dedicated to Professor Kim H. Veltman (1948–2020) and to the extraordinary legacy of research that he left behind.
It is also dedicated to Professor Francisco V. C. Ficarra, whose generous support has greatly assisted the continuation of this work.
We gratefully acknowledge the many scholars, colleagues, and friends who have contributed to this endeavour over many years. These include Ger van Dijck, Nel Roodenburg, Graciete Amaro, Nigel Pugh, Chris and Ruth Green, Professor Ingetraut Dahlberg, Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich, Professor B.A.R. Carter, Professor Marshall McLuhan, Professor Kenneth Keele, Professor A.C. Crombie, Professor R.A. Weale, Professor Luigi Vagnetti, Professor Frederik Andres, Dr Eric McLuhan, Franz Nahrada, Corinne McLuhan, Alexander G. Bielowski, David Fabish, and Michael Kupka.
Their work, encouragement, scholarship, and friendship have helped shape the intellectual foundations of the PRC.