Visual Plane
every picture states the point it is correct from
Concept

Viewing position — where it appears

Where a reader actually stands, which is a different quantity from the station point and rarely the same number.

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

50 mm on full frame · 39.6° acrossphone3.71×94 mm correctlaptop1.28×431 mm correct27-inch monitor0.78×829 mm correcttelevision1.52×1.7 m correctcinema0.84×16.7 m correct×1 — standing at the station pointhow many times further away the reader is than the picture's own station pointworst is the phone at 3.71×

The screen sets the distance

Every viewing distance this site has quoted was conditional on an assumed figure width. Replace the assumption with an actual chain — focal length, sensor width, display width — and the same 50 mm frame is correct from 9 cm on a phone, 83 cm on a monitor and 16.7 m in a cinema. Nobody is standing at any of them.

screen · station 051050100150field of view the picture was rendered at — degreeshow many times the depicted depth is stretchedthe screen subtends 49.3°100° → depth ×2.6027-inch monitor at 650 mmsubtends 49.3°

A wide field on a small screen

A picture rendered at a hundred degrees and shown on a screen that subtends forty-nine is being read from two and a half times its own station distance, so the depicted space is two and a half times too deep. The stretch at the edges everybody complains about is correct; the complaint is really that nobody is sitting where it would be invisible.

screen · screenfov the sheet, 150 × 105 mmthe eye, 52 mm up and 80 mm backgrey: the word standing upright · black: the same word on the paper142 mm from the sheet's middle

An anamorph at true size, on paper

An anamorph is the shadow of the intended picture, cast from the reader’s own eye. Every claim on this site is quoted against an assumed display width because the site cannot know how wide its figures really are; this one is not, because it ships a sheet in millimetres and states where to put an eye.

viewing · anamorph

Named alongside it

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

Viewing distanceDemonstrationDepth compressionfield of viewStation pointSubtended angleAnamorphosiscone of visionEdge stretchFocal lengthHomographyMarginal distortion

All concepts