
The Resolution of the Human Eye Tested Is 10MP - jhonovich
https://ipvm.com/reports/testing-the-resolution-of-the-human-eye
======
Someone
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell)
claims (with caveats) around 100M light sensitive cells (90M rods and 5M
cones), but that doesn't mean 100 megapixels for various reasons.

Some differences between the human eye and a typical digital camera:

\- resolution varies hugely over the retina

\- color sensitivity varies hugely over the retina (you can't see color
outside of the fovea)

\- the optic nerve has only about 1M ganglion cells
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_nerve#Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_nerve#Structure)),
so there is significant 'compression' very early on ("In the fovea, which has
high acuity, these ganglion cells connect to as few as 5 photoreceptor cells;
in other areas of retina, they connect to many thousand photoreceptors.")

\- bandwidth of the optic nerve is estimated at 10 mega _bit_ per second
([https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uops-
prc0726...](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uops-
prc072606.php)) (1)

\- that is very soon further compressed; I can't find decent estimates for
what can be consciously seen, but am sure it is less than 1kB/second
(corollary: photographic memory doesn't exist)

=> "The eye is not a camera" would be a better answer.

(1) as with almost all of these estimates, a factor of ten is nothing.

~~~
jhonovich
"The eye is not a camera" Yes, that is obviously true.

The point is that the eye has the effective resolution, in terms of reading an
eye chart, of a 10MP camera.

~~~
Someone
No, it doesn't.

If you zoom in on those photos, you can see that the camera images entire
lines of text at the same resolution. A camera can 'read' the entire chart in
one snapshot.

The eye doesn't work that way. For example, it is anisotropic in resolution;
at the fovea, it has more 'pixels', but away from it, it has way fewer.
Effect? You cannot read a line from a Snellen chart without moving your eyes.
The eye doesn't take snapshots.

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jsjohnst
Curious why they used IP cameras, my guess is it had less to do with science
and more to do with who they are.

Reason I point this out, notice how blocky the images in general are,
especially with lower light? Take any prosumer/pro digital camera of the same
resolution and you'll get significantly better results, especially at 1 lux.

To reword the title to be a lot more accurate, "the resolving power of the
human eye is roughly equivalent to a 10MP IP camera in a well lit room".
Definitely wordier and less click baity, but accurate to the "analysis" they
did.

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ralusek
I wonder what the other experiments were that were performed that came to such
wildly different figures.

