in a fictional movie, shadow is not only a technical and thematic concept, but also one of the most illustrative and expressing aesthetic elements of the movie. shadows vast dimensions have led to various discussions and studies along the history of cinema. the main theory of this essay is that a shadow is a comprehensible phenomenon whose interpretation and understanding are greatly essential ...

We investigate the brightness distribution in and around outdoor shadows (for a variety of sky conditions) using modeling and field measurements. The dominant factor influencing the brightness of a shadow is the solid angle subtended by the object blocking the Sun. Occulters at the zenith that subtend a small solid angle cast shadows that are bright and possess a nearly uniform brightness acros...

It is almost 160 years since Dr James McDonnell delivered an address to the students entering the Belfast General Hospital. Since that time it has fallen upon a member of this staff to welcome those students who have commenced their first year in the clinical branches of medicine. This year it is my privilege and honour to address and welcome you on behalf of the medical and dental staff of thi...

The viewing limitations inherent in laparoscopic surgery, severely limit depth perception compared to open surgery, sometimes leading to internal trauma caused by the laparoscopic instruments. Recently, the effects of shadows in laparoscopy have been studied and have shown promising results. Previous studies have found that the addition of shadows can improve performance in tasks under laparosc...

Shadows are frequently present when we recognize natural objects, but it is unclear whether they help or hinder recognition. Shadows could improve recognition by providing information about illumination and 3-D surface shape, or impair recognition by introducing spurious contours that are confused with object boundaries. In three experiments, we explored the effect of shadows on recognition of ...

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Soft shadows provide important information to viewers about spatial relationships between objects. Generating accurate soft shadows in real time has been a focus of research in computer graphics. Shadow mapping is a standard way of generating hard shadows in real time and several methods including Smoothies [Chan and Durand 2003] and penumbra maps [Wyman and Hansen 2003] extend the standard sha...

We present a new method for real-time rendering of soft shadows in dynamic scenes. Our approach is based on shadow volume algorithm which provides fast, accurate and high quality shadows. The shadow volume algorithm is used to generate hard shadows before adding fake soft shadows onto it. Although the generated soft shadows are physically inaccurate, this method provides soft shadows that are s...