Ever wonder what the world looks like to your dog? There’s a web app for that.
The Dog Vision app, created by András Péter, has actually been around for two years but has recently been in the news. The purpose of this web-based image processing tool is to provide a look at the differences in color perception, brightness discrimination and visual acuity between dogs and humans.
It’s easy to use: Simply upload an image and select the perceptual differences you want to view. (I selected all the differences for these photos of my dogs.)
So, are dogs really completely color blind? Nope. They have a dichromatic color perception, meaning they can see two colors.
“Unlike humans who have three different color-sensitive cone cells in their retina (red, green and blue), dogs have only two (yellow and blue),” the Dog Vision website explains.
“This does not mean dogs can’t see green or red objects! It only means that they can’t distinguish green, yellow or red objects based on their color. However, they can still distinguish a red ball from a green one if there is a difference in the perceived brightness of the two.”
The Dog Vision app can’t show us exactly what dogs perceive, but it does provide an interesting look at the differences between what humans and dogs see. For technical details about how Dog Vision was programmed, visit the website.
While it’s a little sad to realize just how blurry and dull the world apparently appears to our dogs, vision isn’t really their strong suit anyway. Dogs have a sense of smell that is up to 100,000 stronger than ours. So there’s that.