Adobe Illustrator has taken over five minutes (and counting) to render a vector 2D image rotated 18 in 3D on my computer. And yet, I and nearly anyone else can easily visualize the subject rotated almost instantaneously, and with little effort rotate the object continuously in real time in the mind's eye.I'm not asking how the brain stores representations of objects, as that's clearly up for debate. But how does the brain structure its internal representation of 3D visual data?It's almost definitely not in some pixel-based format, as can be shown by simply visualizing an object of some sort, and then zooming in mentally on some detail and noticing the image retains its sharpness. It's probably not breaking down objects into geometric shapes either, because at least I personally don't visualize my friends as stick figures. It could be a vector format, but then it should be easier to visualize complex shapes that are mathematically simple, like this one:So it would seem that the brain uses some other format. To the best knowledge of modern cognitive, how does this work?
How does the brain structure 3D visual data?
cognitive neuroscience;vision;cognitive modeling;visualization