Measuring the Visual Salience of 3D Printed Objects

Xi Wang, David Lindlbauer, Christian Lessig, Marianne Maertens, and Marc Alexa from the Technical University of Berlin, set up an experiment that examines if visually salient features exist for genuine 3D stimuli. They then validated computational models for the visual saliency of 3D objects. To test the consistency between different human observers, they proposed an analysis in which the observed fixation patterns on an object are tested against sequences of fixations that are unrelated to the geometry, yet are psychophysically plausible. These test sequences were generated from fixation sequences recorded for the same subject but using a different object. The results show a higher amount of agreement for fixations on the same object between observers compared with generated test sequences. This indicates the existence of visually salient features on 3D objects. The result also suggests that gaze directions systematically and meaningfully vary with the external stimulus, which is a necessary precondition for further analyses of human viewing behavior for 3D stimuli.