Rayfront User Manual

Perspective View

The perspective view projection comes closest to what we usually consider a "natural" view, as it most closely reproduces the way that the human eyes perceive reality.

Perspective View Properties

A perspective projection is calculated by determining the point where a ray travelling towards the eye from a specific angle penetrates a virtual image plane.

The maximum opening angles are almost 180 degrees in both directions (full 180 degrees would require an image plane of infinite size). Opening angles greater than 90 degrees lead to increasing geometric distortion.

This diagram illustrates the projection of angles relative to the view direction onto the image plane. The important thing to understand is that the distance between two points on the image plane not only depends on the angle between the respective points in space from the view point. Points nearer to the view axis are closer to each other on the image plane than points in the peripheral areas.

The diagram below illustrates the three dimensional properties of a perspective view. The proportions between vertical and horizontal angles on one hand, and vertical and horizontal image size are related to each other in a unambigouos, but nonlinear way.

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