Depth Cues

In the field of vision and perception sciences, depth refers to the distance and position of objects we perceive in three-dimensional space. Even when viewed through a two-dimensional medium, such as pictures or screen, we are still able to perceive the three-dimensional nature and depth of these objects using a variety of visual cues. These visual cues are also known as depth cues.

Categorization of depth cues

The following shows the categorization of depth cues, but it is not the only categorization standard.

Please move your mouse over the rectangles with different depth cues to see the details.

Hands-On

Left-click on the cube and long press, you can drag it left, right, up and down, it will not change the depth.

Right-click on the cube to display its details.

Click on "Light Setting" to modify the position and size of the light source and the shadows.

Click on "Reset", the light, gridlines and planes will be restored to its default value and the depth of the cubes will be reset randomly.

The important coordinates:
Origin: (0, 0, 0).The horizontal direction is the x-axis, the vertical direction is the y-axis, and the depth direction is the z-axis.
Camera: (20, 5, 20). The screen shows the scene from the camera's perspective
Light source: (15, 40, 20).The light shines on the cubes and casts shadows on the plane.

References

Holger Kumke: Kartographische Anreicherung von Gebäudefassaden mit thermalen Bilddaten, 2011
Christian Murphy: Vorlesung Kartographie II:Einführung in die 3D Visualisierung mit Kepler.gl, 2022
Barbara Sweet: Depth Perception, Cueing, and Control, 2011
Haley Adams: Depth Perception in Augmented Reality: The Effects of Display, Shadow, and Position, 2022
Jiamin Ping: Review of depth perception in virtual and real fusion environment, 2021