CAMERA = HUMAN EYE

cmeed

hello all
I have to place a camera in a stadium seat and show a client what that person would see as its partly obstructed.
I'm sure that one of you guys has done this before and i'm intrested in knowing what angle you put or would put the camera.
cheers
chris

Dave R

The horizontal angle of view for humans is about 180 degrees. You could set that in SketchUp. It would show in one view what the sight lines are but it would cause a great deal of distortion so your client would need to be made aware of that. As to placing the camera, I would put a guide point on the seat and then place the camera using Position Camera. Before placing the camera, type an offset distance for the camera and hit Enter. the offset value would be the distance between the point on the seat and the viewer's eyes. Say, 32" or so.

cmeed

thanks for the info dave, 180 seems a lot? most of that is periphery vision so hence the distortion, is that right?

so I go less to lessen this distortion. to something like 50 field of view, the 'seems' ok - is there a right and wrong? obviously there is - we don't see in parallel projection or like a rabbit, 360.

Dave R

The nearly 180 degree angle of view would include the peripheral vision but in the case of one image, it would also accomodate the person turning their head. The distortion is due to projecting lines to the image plan from extreme angles. 50 degrees would reduce the distortion substantially but you might need to use several views to cover everything. Maybe not, though. I guess it depends upon what the viewer in the seat is expected to look at. A column positioned 80 degrees to the side of straight ahead is probably not going to be a sight line issue anyway.

Find the balance between what you need to show and the amount of distortion you can tolerate.

cmeed

Cheers

jason_maranto

If you are looking to match the perspective distortion a human eye would see (which is different from cone of vision/field of view) then I created a DC that will calculate that -- however you will need to know the pixel dimensions of the SketchUp viewport.
AOV calculator.skp
Bring this DC into a scene as a component (do not open directly) and then choose "Component Options" from the DC toolbar.

Best,
Jason.