A commentary on ‘Amplitude spectra of natural images’

Tolhurst, Tadmor and Tang Chao (Ophthalmic Physiol Opt 1992; 12: 229-232)published their analyses of the Fourier spectra of 135 digitised monochrome photographs of everyday scenes. In 2015, this would be a trivial exercise, but in 1992, this stretched emerging computer technology to its desktop limits. The short paper made an impact because it provided a handle for extending vision science beyond laboratory stimuli such as sinewave gratings into a real world of real visual scenes and real visual tasks.