Unifying shading and texture through an active observer.

Shading (variations of image intensity) provides an important cue for understanding the shape of three-dimensional surfaces from monocular views. On the other hand, texture (distribution of discontinuities on the surface) is a strong cue for recovering surface orientation by using monocular images. But given the image of an object or scene, what technique should we use to recover the shape of what is image? Resolution of shape from shading requires knowledge of the reflectance of the imaged surface and, usually, the fact that it is smooth (i.e. it shows no discontinuities). Determination of shape from texture requires knowledge of the distribution of surface markings (i.e. discontinuities). One might expect that one method would work when the other does not. I present a theory on how an active observer can determine shape from the image of an object or scene regardless of whether the image is shaded, textured, or both, and without any knowledge of reflectance maps or the distribution of surface markings. The approach is successful because the active observer is able to manipulate the constraints behind the perceptual phenomenon at hand and thus derive a simple solution. Several experimental results are presented with real and synthetic images.