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

Volume anamorphosis — where it appears

An anamorph made of objects arranged in space rather than of marks on a surface, whose second eye is given a consistent shallow scene rather than none. Every dimension of the built set is scaled by the ratio of the depths, so the arrangement is a real scene rather than a distorted picture of one.

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

54 px69 px84° across27% wider at the edge

Wide angle is not distortion

A wide lens stretches shapes at the edge of the frame by exactly 1/cos θ — 3% at 28° across, 41% at 90°. Every bit of that is what a correct rectilinear projection must do, and every bit of it disappears if the picture is viewed from the point it was made for. Nobody views it from there.

viewing · Widefield eyefaint: the row it imitates · solid: the row that is builtbuilt row21.0 pxthe deep row28.4 pxdisparity across the row, two eyes 63 mm apartfar column cut to 0.300the eyes read 74.1%, not 22.2%

A set cut for one eye

Build a colonnade four metres deep and cut every column so that its picture is the picture of one eighteen metres deep. The taper is forced rather than chosen — height and width both scale as the real depth over the intended one — and the match from the design eye is exact to sixteen decimal places. What gives it away is the second eye, and not by the ratio anybody would predict.

viewing · Builtset

Named alongside it

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

AnamorphosisViewing distanceBarrel distortionDemonstrationDepth compressionDepth cueDiminutionDisparityEdge stretchfield of viewForced perspectiveForeshortening

All concepts