M3

mantis human owl monkey robot

Above: Five examples of evolved and engineered binocular stereoscopic vision systems.

        Man, mantis & machine: the computation of 3D vision

This is an exciting research programme funded by a Research Leadership Award from the Leverhulme Trust. It aims to understand 3D vision (stereopsis) in the praying mantis, the only invertebrate known to have this ability, and compare it with 3D vision in humans and in machines. This will shed new light on the constraints governing 3D vision, how 3D vision evolved, and how we can engineer efficient 3D vision ourselves. Here you can find a brief FAQ, a more detailed description of our planned research, browse media coverage of the research, see what we’ve published so far or catch up on our progress at the M3 project blog.