A processing device receives signals associated with nerve impulses that are transmitted to the visual cortex of a subject in response to one or more visual stimuli provided to at least one eye of the subject. The processing device processes the received signals and generates digital image data from the processed received signals that is representative of the visual perception, by the subject, of the one or more visual stimuli. In certain embodiments, the processing device processes digital image data that is representative of a scene to convert the digital image data to a sequence of nerve impulses, and provides the sequence of nerve impulses to the visual cortex of a subject such that the subject visually perceives the scene.