I’m at Siggraph 2006 and will try to post some of the stuff that I find interesting through the week. No particular order or focus. Just notes along the way during this highly interesting conference. You can read more about Siggraph over at the official ACM Siggraph site. To put it short, this annual conference is the world’s biggest conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques.

So for my first little note. I just finished a session by Dr. Aude Oliva, Antonio Torralba and Philippe G. Schyns. It was about what they call hybrid images.

Images that change based on the distance from where it is viewed. Have a look at the two pictures below:

Pictures copyright © 1999-2006 Aude Oliva & Philippe G. Schyns. MIT

Now step away from your computer screen while looking at the pictures. Depending on the size of your screen and the quality of your vision the pictures will change at a certain distance. For those of you that is just too lazy to step away from the screen I can simulate this by simpy reducing the size of the image. This is a small version of the exact same image:

Suggested uses are commercial billboards that change depending on the distance to the viewer. and fonts that can only be read at a close distance to avoid people reading “over your shoulder”.

You find more examples and information over at the GALLERY OF HYBRID IMAGES.