Light: Toward a Transdisciplinary Science of Appearance and Atmosphere

Abstract

To understand the processes behind seeing light, we need to integrate knowledge about the incoming optical structure, its perception, and how light interacts with material, shape, and space—objectively and subjectively. To that end, we need a novel approach to the science of light, namely, a transdisciplinary science of appearance, integrating optical, perceptual, and design knowledge and methods. In this article, I review existing literature as a basis for such a synthesis, which should discuss light in its full complexity, including its spatial properties and interactions with materials, shape, and space. I propose to investigate this by representing the endless variety of light, materials, shapes, and space as canonical modes and their combinations.

Climate, Illumination, and the Style of Western and Eastern Paintings

“…Importantly, differences in the spatial structure of illumination are mirrored in the visual appearance of natural objects in the natural environment, as suggested by recent studies on material/color perception (Fleming et al, 2003;Motoyoshi et al, 2007;Pont, 2019). As shown in Fig.…”

“…Psychophysical evidence shows that the human visual system cannot overcome these apparent effects to see through physical shape or the reflectance properties of the object (Fleming et al, 2003;Ho et al, 2008;Kartashova et al, 2016;Pont, 2019). The perceived glossiness, lightness, and bumps necessarily depend on the statistical structure of the lightfield -that is, diffuse illumination makes an object look almost matte, lighter, and less bumpy (Fleming et al, 2003;Ho et al, 2008;Motoyoshi and Matoba, 2012).…”

“…There would be other factors that vary with weather. One is the higher-order illumination variables such as 'diffuseness' and 'brilliance', which have recently been shown to influence the perception of materials and shapes (Pont, 2019;Zhang et al, 2019). The other is haze, which is known to significantly reduce the contrast and blur the image of distant objects (Narasimhan and Nayar, 2002).…”

Living Light Interfaces —An Exploration of Bioluminescence Aesthetics

“…Dynamic lighting has been studied in relation to various fields of studies, including, augmented reality [1], design and architecture [36,19,21] and more fundamentally in optics and visual perception [e.g. 53,30,48].…”

“…However, it could be used for 'wayfinding' in the dark [16] and enhancing the livelihood and experience of spaces through dynamic texture and 'brilliance' [cf. 36,19].…”