The Natural Flow of Perspective: Reformulating Perspective Projection for Computer Animation

The author proposes a synthesis of theories of perception, image analysis and computer graphics as a foundation for the further development of realistic computer animation based on the point of view of the observer of the simulated world rather than on analysis of the physics of the simulation. Various aspects of perspective are explored, and the author shows how projection on a flat plane can fail to account for our intuitive expectation of how appearances change with distance. He also derives a way of describing truly moving pictures, i.e. those that are not created through a sequence of still frames.