Far and Yet Close: Multiple Viewpoints for the Perfect Portrait

Realistic pictures, whether paintings, photographs or rendered images of models, are traditionally obtained using classical perspective projection. Here I focus on pictures of people and discuss evidence suggesting that, for best results, full-length realistic-looking portraits should be produced by combining multiple viewpoints. I test this prediction experimentally and find that full-length portraits look more compelling if appropriate multiple viewpoints are chosen. I notice that multi-viewpoint portraiture has likely been used since the Renaissance, although no explicit mention of it is found in the literature.