Colour Science & Perception
what the eye settles, and what it cannot
Generator

What a broken border costs, against how much of it is missing

The shortfall at the centre of a region — how far below its border's own value it settles — against the fraction of the border that is missing, both on logarithmic axes. The points lie on a straight line of slope 2.02, so the cost goes as the square of the gap: a border 96% complete leaves the interior 0.32% short, and halving the gap quarters that. A dashed outline is not approximately a solid one — it is very nearly exactly one.
What a broken border costs, against how much of it is missing. The shortfall at the centre of a region — how far below its border's own value it settles — against the fraction of the border that is missing, both on logarithmic axes. The points lie on a straight line of slope 2.02, so the cost goes as the square of the gap: a border 96% complete leaves the interior 0.32% short, and halving the gap quarters that. A dashed outline is not approximately a solid one — it is very nearly exactly one.

Drawn at its defaults, in what fills in, and what shape it takes. It takes 2 options, and the essays below show what each placement asks of it.

Called by 1 essay

the blast radius of changing it

What a scene does

A gap in the drive, not in the wall

Break the contour around a region and leave its border signal unbroken, and the interior does not move by one part in a million — a ring of driven cells encloses a centre whatever the wall outside it is doing. Break the signal too and the shortfall goes as the square of what is missing. All of what a gap costs is the piece of border that stopped driving.

All 155 generators · what each essay asks for instead