Objects exist and move in a three-dimensional world, but the images they cast on our eyes are flat, two-dimensional pictures, in which the depth dimension is lost. However, our brain has the capacity to recover the lost depth dimension and recreate in our perception vivid three dimensional objects. One way in which the depth dimension is recovered is through a process known by the term 'structure from motion'. When objects more in the world, the image they cast on our eyes is constantly changing, and the brain can use these dynamic changes to create faithful three-dimensional percepts.
Weizmann scientists were the first to analyze the computations involved in the perception of structure from motion, and to develop methods that allow computers to perform the same task, and re-create the three dimensional structure from their changing projections. These results formed a foundation to a large body of research on the perception of motion and the recovery of structure from motion by the human visual system, and for automatic methods for recovering the three-dimensional shape of moving objects.