Do you ever look at a surface, and as you look closer, see the surface become a collection of thousands of colored speckles. The speckles are steady, but change when the viewing angle changes. The speckles appear granular, and the effect is most easily seen in the reflection of laser-light. But laser light is coherent, while sunlight contains a variety of colors and polarizations.
Is this specular perception a real thing, or an artifact of sight? Is our vision made of pixels?
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It’s the ‘Seurat effect!’ he pointillistically declared. 
p-nullifidian
Level 8
Apr 25, 2022
4
The answer to your second question is yes, 6 million receptor cones, the brain actually fills in the voids to give us a smooth picture.
glennlab
Level 10
Apr 25, 2022
5
If I understood correctly:
in the case of a completely clean surface; Surface smoothness is a relative term, there's always Roughness even on most smooth surfaces there is micro-roughness, and when you get closer it's more noticeable.
in short, like crystals, every part of roughness will reflect light in another direction with different colour, those colours depend on several factors like Surfaces Material, roughness, refraction, Light angle, Fresnel, Photonic Crystal...etc.
oh, btw, pixels mean nothing to human vision.
Diaco
Level 7
Apr 25, 2022
4
The colored speckles don't seem to have a dimension but look like they represent atoms or their transitioning electrons. The image is stable and doesn't change except with viewing angle. Relaxing the eye and backing away, the actual color of the surface returns. Attempts to recreate the phenomena with a powerful flashlight are unsuccessful.
Hey, don't bogart that...
skado
Level 9
Apr 25, 2022
6
Sounds more like acid ... "ooh! the colors!"
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