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As a person that has been practicing and studying line drawing for 15+ years, this article seems like its way off the mark. Its just not asking the right questi

As a person that has been practicing and studying line drawing for 15+ years, this article seems like its way off the mark. Its just not asking the right questions. The brain uses all kinds of context sensitive cues to try to link what its looking at to whats its already seen before. If you happen to look at something thats completely new, it doesnt matter if its a line drawing, 3d 4k image or whatever, your brain will be confused. OTOH, when you're looking at something that you've seen before the brain will do all kinds of tricks and cheats to make that thing as real as possible. Anyone that draws will know you can use plain black and white lines to depict everything from textures, depth, color etc.. Line drawing works because literally anything will work. You could see a distorted, flat black silhouette of one of your family members, and you will instantly know who it is. Its your brain that "makes" things work because its job is to take incomplete information and make it fit an existing mental model. Line drawings carry so much visual information about objects that its really not that impressive your brain can "figure" out what its looking at. It can do so much more with so much less.

regularfry 3y ago
The last picture in the article is an interesting counter-example: a line drawing that's constructed in a fairly natural way that is nevertheless almost impossible to interpret. I'm sure there are "line art rules" that picture breaks which are almost second nature to someone who's been in the game for as long as you have; the interesting thing is how that translates to the visual cortex and why those rules work.
- timacles 3y ago
  That one isn't a line drawing, its a shadow relief drawing with depth removed. Then with with outlines applied to the shadows. Even then, the only reason why its so "confusing" to us is because they applied some kind of random black shape to the background which extends above his head to the left. The black background blends with the man's body making an amorphous blob. If it was removed you'd be able to instantly tell thats a bald mans head. You are correct about the "line art rules" they're all just basic visual rules that the brain uses that artists have been playing with for 100s of years. Its no different than those illusions that look like a Grandma or young woman at the same time. All it takes is one conspicuously placed shape and your whole perspective can be thrown off. No different from how camo works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_coloration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_coloration Anyway, my point being, this isn't some new phenomenon, its a well understood at this point.

regularfry 3y ago

The last picture in the article is an interesting counter-example: a line drawing that's constructed in a fairly natural way that is nevertheless almost impossible to interpret. I'm sure there are "line art rules" that picture breaks which are almost second nature to someone who's been in the game for as long as you have; the interesting thing is how that translates to the visual cortex and why those rules work.

timacles 3y ago
That one isn't a line drawing, its a shadow relief drawing with depth removed. Then with with outlines applied to the shadows. Even then, the only reason why its so "confusing" to us is because they applied some kind of random black shape to the background which extends above his head to the left. The black background blends with the man's body making an amorphous blob. If it was removed you'd be able to instantly tell thats a bald mans head. You are correct about the "line art rules" they're all just basic visual rules that the brain uses that artists have been playing with for 100s of years. Its no different than those illusions that look like a Grandma or young woman at the same time. All it takes is one conspicuously placed shape and your whole perspective can be thrown off. No different from how camo works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_coloration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_coloration Anyway, my point being, this isn't some new phenomenon, its a well understood at this point.