human eye

[Raza Ahmad]

Anyone know what the resolution/maximum color depth perception the human eye(s) are capable of? Oh... and framerate too...

With more and more megapixels, colors and fps's round the bend, when will we hit a maxpoint?

-raza

[Edward Slonaker]

Not sure about framerate but, the human eye can not distinguish anything higher than 300 dpi or 24-bit (16.7M) color depth. Digital Cameras, both still and video, have already well exceeded those limitations. The majority of displays use 72 dpi, or sometimes 96 dpi. You're never going to "see" 300 dpi (or better) on any TV/HD screen, no matter who makes it.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Figures like "300 dpi" are pretty meaningless unless you know how many inches wide the field of view is....

[Pete Bauer]

Here's an existing -- even if rambling -- thread on the subject:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=40891

[Edward Slonaker]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

Figures like "300 dpi" are pretty meaningless unless you know how many inches wide the field of view is....

Doesn't matter how many inches wide the field of view is....it's the measurement of density within those inches....

[J. Stephen McDonald]

When I was studying Physiology in college, I was taught that the "frame-rate" for the human eye was 25 fps. However, in recent years, I've found that it isn't that simple. The number of still images that are registered and sent off vary, depending on the light level and complexity of the image. In bright light, perhaps the frame-rate would go up to 80 or even higher and a more complex picture would cause the rate to increase. There's intercommunication between the visual center in the brain and the eyes, that is very sophisticated and complex. Many factors can influence this function. A binary code is used to send visual information from the eye. It's a series of "on" and "off" impulses in what I suppose would be comparable to a one-bit digital system.

Regarding the resolution capabilities of a human eye, this would vary greatly between individuals. I've heard that the best eyes can resolve the equivalent of 3,500 lines of resolution in video terms, but others say that it's much lower than this. I don't think you'd find much consensus about it, even among experts.

They say that eagles have eyes that are many times sharper than those of Humans, but that our all-purpose vision is actually better, due to a more complex brain. In other words, the image processor is just as important as the sensor. Some eagles have 3X zoom vision and can pick out tiny prey and their movements at great distances, but we can see and analyse all types of images better. We have great abilities to calculate and plot the courses of moving objects. We can do error-correction, by ignoring erratic single frames. When you watch a pull-down of 24 fps film to 30 fps video, your visual system ignores the duplicate fields and you perceive smooth motion. Go through a film-conversion frame-by-frame and you can see the duplicates. We can also fill-in missing parts of an image, much better than any other organism. But sometimes, we don't do this accurately. This is why a hunter once mistook a school bus for an elk. He was expecting and hoping for an elk and the flashes of the bus through trees caused his visual OS to run a glitch that Microsoft would envy. Fortunately, he missed all the kids.

[Raza Ahmad]

That's really interesting...

Thanks for all your responses...

-raza

[Keith Wakeham]

From what I remember from some high school physics classes the average eye can percieve a framerate of a little over 70 fps but everyone is different. Thats why some people see flicker on monitors at 60 hz but some don't.

But I think this is a maximum based on alternating high contrast images... but since real life is more smooth than this like was said before our brains fill in the gaps. I think the web is full of information on it though.