Seeing has puzzled scientists and philosophers for
centuries and it continues to do so. This new edition of
a classic text offers an accessible but rigorous
introduction to the computational approach to
understanding biological visual systems. The authors of
Seeing, taking as their premise David Marr's statement
that ''to understand vision by studying only neurons is
like trying to understand bird flight by studying only
feathers,'' make use of Marr's three different levels of
analysis in the study of vision: the computational
level, the algorithmic level, and the hardware
implementation level. Each chapter applies this approach
to a different topic in vision by examining the problems
the visual system encounters in interpreting retinal
images and the constraints available to solve these
problems; the algorithms that can realize the solution;
and the implementation of these algorithms in
neurons.Seeing has been thoroughly updated for this
edition and expanded to more than three times its
original length.It is designed to lead the reader
through the problems of vision, from the common (but
mistaken) idea that seeing consists just of making
pictures in the brain to the minutiae of how neurons
collectively encode the visual features that underpin
seeing. Although it assumes no prior knowledge of the
field, some chapters present advanced material, This
makes it the only textbook suitable for both
undergraduate and graduate students that takes a
consistently computational perspective, offering a firm
conceptual basis for tackling the vast literature on
vision. It covers a wide range of topics, including
aftereffects, the retina, receptive fields, object
recognition, brain maps, Bayesian perception, motion,
color, and stereopsis. MatLab code is available on the
book's Web site, which includes a simple demonstration
of image convolution. |
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