Concept

Interocular distance — where it appears

The separation between the two eyes, about sixty-three millimetres in an adult, and the only length that enters a binocular reading. Every disparity is proportional to it, so a narrower pair sees proportionally less of whatever a curved surface sends them.

Named by 3 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

toward the designup63 mm apart10 mm14 mm across36 mm along the sight line

An anamorph has one eye

From the design point exactly — a camera's single eye — the floor marks give the design back to sixteen decimal places. A head carries two eyes 63 mm apart, and neither of them is the design point. The difference between the disparity the floor gives and the disparity an upright board would give runs to 47 arcminutes, against a stereoacuity of a few tens of arcseconds. This is why pavement paintings are photographed.

viewing · Builtset
-2024-0.500-0.25000.2500.500where the viewer sits, as a fraction of the sitting distance (log₁₀)the two eyes' vertical disagreement, in arcminutes (log₁₀)15′ fusion limitthe raw differencewhat a common frame leavesthe sitting distancecurved monitor, against the chairlimit at 29 cm

The distance at which the eyes part

The two eyes' disagreement on a curved screen was measured at each screen's own sitting distance and reported as a null result. The sitting distance is a parameter and the chair moves — swept, the raw difference falls like the cube of it and the residual like the fourth power, and a viewer twenty-nine centimetres from a curved monitor crosses the fusion limit the null result was quoted against.

screen · Stereodisplay
0102030400102030roll of the head about its line of sight (degrees)vertical disparity at the eyes (arcminutes)15′ fusion limitinfinityten screens backtwo screens backhalf-way outon the glass: 0′ at every rollscreen 2.60 m away · eyes 63 mm

A stereo picture is drawn for a level head

Every stereo pair is drawn for two eyes level with each other — a point's two images share a row and differ only across it. Tilt the head 10° in front of a television and that difference turns partly vertical, 14.46 arcminutes for anything drawn at infinity, and the two sightlines to a point stop meeting. At a desk monitor the same fifteen-arcminute limit arrives at 2.58°.

screen · Stereodisplay

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Binocular disparityScreenAnamorphosisArcminuteAsymptoticsCentre of curvatureDepth cueDisparityForced perspectiveFusion limitGround planeHomography

All concepts