An Investigation into Hybrid Moving Images

Abstract

Hybrid image synthesis techniques leverage human visual perception to combine two source images, creating a visual illusion in which one is seen at close range and the other from a distance. In this paper, we extend these techniques to hybrid moving images and report findings from a user study evaluating their effectiveness. While the perceptual properties of hybrid images are well established, to our knowledge, they have only been applied to still images, aside from our preliminary experiments. Our results indicate that the techniques can be applied to moving images with similar perceptual effects. However, the effective viewing distances are generally narrower in hybrid moving images. The findings also suggest that greater care is needed when synthesizing hybrid moving images, as the high-frequency image (visible at close range) is harder to perceive. Furthermore, we compared two established hybrid image synthesis methods—Oliva’s original and Sripian’s extended techniques—to assess whether Sripian’s advantage with still images carries over. The results suggest that the advantage of the longer perceivable distance of the HF image in hybrid still images may diminish or disappear in hybrid moving images.