Machine Vision, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 1 Vision, the Challenge

1.1 Introduction—The Senses

Of the five senses—vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—vision is undoubtedly the one that we have come to depend upon above all others, and indeed the one that provides most of the data we receive. Not only do the input pathways from the eyes provide megabits of information at each glance, but the data rate for continuous viewing probably exceed 10 megabits per second. However, much of this information is redundant and is compressed by the various layers of the visual cortex, so that the higher centers of the brain have to interpret abstractly only a small fraction of the data. Nonetheless, the amount of information the higher centers receive from the eyes must be at least two ...