What is the meaning of optic flow ux y uxy Vxy where uxy an

What is the meaning of optic flow u(x, y) = [u_xy, V_xy], where u_xy and V_xy is short for u(x, y) and v(x, y), respectively? Note that we do not include time slot t into the notation because the addressed calculation problem reappears identically for any subsequent time slot t.

Solution

Optical flow or optic flow is the pattern of apparentmotion of objects, surfaces, and edges in a visual scene caused by the relative motion between an observer (an eye or a camera) and the scene. The concept of optical flow was introduced by the American psychologist James J. Gibson in the 1940s to describe the visual stimulus provided to animals moving through the world. Gibson stressed the importance of optic flow for affordance perception, the ability to discern possibilities for action within the environment. Followers of Gibson and his ecological approach to psychologyhave further demonstrated the role of the optical flow stimulus for the perception of movement by the observer in the world; perception of the shape, distance and movement of objects in the world; and the control of locomotion. The term optical flow is also used by roboticists, encompassing related techniques from image processing and control of navigation including motion detection, object segmentation, time-to-contact information, focus of expansion calculations, luminance, motion compensated encoding, and stereo disparity measurement.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_flow