The Analogy between Stereo Depth and Brightness

Apparent depth in stereograms exhibits various simultaneous-contrast and induction effects analogous to those reported in the luminance domain. This behavior suggests that stereo depth, like brightness, is reconstructed, ie recovered from higher-order spatial derivatives or differences of the original signal. The extent to which depth is analogous to brightness is examined. There are similarities in terms of contrast effects but dissimilarities in terms of the lateral inhibition effects traditionally attributed to underlying spatial-differentiation operators.