At what level in resolution (4k, 8k, etc) is something higher resolution than average human eyes max out at and why?
In: Biology
It’s gonna vary based on the distance to the screen and how you define “max out”. Also, human vision isn’t very accurately represented by pixels per square inch (PPI), which is what we use for screens.
For example, someone with 20/20 vision sitting 1 foot from a screen could see roughly 477-573 PPI, but that just means they wouldn’t be able to see the white space between pixels at that distance. At 15 inches away, that number drops into the 350 PPI range.
Sitting 6 feet away means you could see around 240 PPI, but it’s disingenuous because that would mean a 24″ screen at 1080p would mathematically appear the same as a 60″ 4k HD screen, which we know to be incorrect from practice. This is because pixels vary across manufacturers and types of screens.
And then you have to worry about things like lower fidelity cameras, video or image compression, etc. A 720p video is going to appear worse the better your screen is, regardless of PPI or distance to the screen, for example.
So, to be technical about it, there really just isn’t a good or accurate way to describe human vision in PPI.
Eye-limiting resolution is about one arc-~~second~~minute†. That means that when you have a 60 x 60 pixel patch that’s 1˚ by 1˚, that’s the most a person with 20/20 vision can distinguish.
So, your 4K display has 2160 lines vertically. So if you sit far enough back that the height of the TV is 36˚ tall, then the 4K display has eye-limiting resolution. However, the human field of view is 135˚ by 120˚, so it takes a lot of pixels to cover that. The eye doesn’t have its best resolution everywhere, so you could make a special eye-like display with lots of pixels in the middle and fewer pixels in the periphery, but that would be super difficult to make. The very agile muscles that rotate the eyes are also a problem for this scheme.
Edit: † There was a typo in this line, it should be arc-minute, as I used in the other calculations. Sorry.
Personally I literally cannot tell the difference between 1080p and 4k
Don’t know if I’m blind, stupid, or just don’t care enough to see the difference
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So here’s the actual answer: under motion we can see at a general maximum of 120 “pixels” per degree of vision, at the center of our vision.
For those wondering why it’s not 60 pixels like the eye charts seem to say, that’s because it’s a line “pair” that can be distinguished, thus 2 samples and not 1.
Thus what really matters is how much of your vision is taken up be the screen. Which should be obvious, smash your face against a 4k screen and of course you’ll see the pixels.
Thus, if you have a screen that takes up 60 degrees of view, really big tbh, an 8k screen is indeed needed to “match”your eye resolution. It’s a little over but whatever. The whatever part comes from another fun fact that if you are looking at a still image your visual acuity along a given axis increases by around 70% further still, in under a second.
PS, for all the wrong answers here, this really wasn’t hard to find: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity
Follow up question if I may, what resolution per eye is needed for perfect VR vision? Or at what point you will not spot the difference? Is it bigger than 8K?
Tl;dr, with today’s tech 8K would do it.
As far as resolution goes (aside from other aspects of the visual experience) there’s two competing limits: visual acuity (the smallest detail the eye can resolve) and field of view (the breadth of view that the eye can take in. Both are measured in units of angle so trigonometry comes into the picture.
Messing around with [Carlton Bale’s home theater calculator](https://carltonbale.com/home-theater/home-theater-calculator/), using a 65″ 8K monitor from 3-1/2 feet away (oof) you would be able to see the entire screen while looking anywhere on the screen (wide enough field of view) and also be unable to discern individual pixels (high enough resolution).
I may be incorrect, as I’m no expert, but I believe its less about resolution and more about PPI (Pixels Per Inch) density in relation to distance and screen size. A 27″ 1080p panel and a 55″ 4k panel are going to look roughly similar in crispness if they’re both good quality and you’re viewing them from your respective proper distances. On top of that, a 70″ 4k panel is likely to look lower resolution than a comparable 55″ 4k, due to the inherent difference in pixel density because of the larger screen. A good way to think about it is with the screens at sports stadiums. They look pretty crisp since you’re usually a thousand-or-so feet away, however because they only made it high enough resolution to be clear from long distance, up close you can basically count the pixels.
There are two different answers here depending on what you’re looking for. There’s pixel resolution and aliasing resolution. Cell phone screens and most tv’s now have dense enough pixels (colored dots) that at regular viewing distances you can’t make out individual pixels.
Pixel size isn’t the only thing your eye can see though. You actually have a much better ability to see aliasing (trying to represent a smooth curved object like a hanging powerline with pixels arranged in straight lines, leading to what appears as jagged lines). Because of this, image quality can still slightly improve by increasing resolution past 4k and likely 8k, but that depends on how far you sit from the screen.
Watch If Your Eye was a Camera What Would the Specs befrom the [Corridor Crew](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSpFnDQr88xCZ80N-X7t0nQ), they had a real nice video about it
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPpAXMH5Upo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPpAXMH5Upo)
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