Estimation of the Horizon in Photographed Outdoor Scenes by Human and Machine

We present three experiments on horizon estimation. In Experiment 1 we verify the human ability to estimate the horizon in static images from only visual input. Estimates are given without time constraints with emphasis on precision. The resulting estimates are used as baseline to evaluate horizon estimates from early visual processes. Stimuli are presented for only 153 ms and then masked to purge visual short-term memory and enforcing estimates to rely on early processes, only. The high agreement between estimates and the lack of a training effect shows that enough information about viewpoint is extracted in the first few hundred milliseconds to make accurate horizon estimation possible. In Experiment 3 we investigate several strategies to estimate the horizon in the computer and compare human with machine "behavior" for different image manipulations and image scene types.