The visual angle is the angle a viewed object subtends at the eye, usually stated in degrees of arc. It also is called the object's angular size.
The diagram on the right shows an observer's eye looking at a frontal extent (the vertical arrow) that has a linear size, located in the distance from point .
For present purposes, point can represent the eye's nodal points at about the center of the lens, and also represent the center of the eye's entrance pupil that is only a few millimeters in front of the lens.
The three lines from object endpoint heading toward the eye indicate the bundle of light rays that pass through the cornea, pupil and lens to form an optical image of endpoint on the retina at point . The central line of the bundle represents the chief ray
Likewise for object point and its retinal image at .
The visual angle is the angle between the chief rays for and .
Read more about Visual Angle: Measuring and Computing, The Retinal Image and Visual Angle, Examples, Terminological Confusions, Visual Angle and The Visual Cortex, Angular Size Illusion and Area V1
Famous quotes containing the words visual and/or angle:
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)