5.2.1 Visual information flowing from the eyes

This analysis is based on a single human eye. Other species should be fairly similar, except that most have a gray scale instead of colour.

• Restricting ourselves to single-focus eyes, the analysis for other animals is likely to be similar
• For sake of simplicity, we shall use a single eye, and thus ignore stereo perception for the moment

Resolution is at least 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels (less than High-Def TV), evidenced by the fact that older formats are seen as noticeably grainy.

• For this analysis we are ignoring peripheral vision
• The true resolution, as estimated by cones and rods, is undoubtably much higher. In this estimate we are trying to be very conservative.
• For our analysis we do not care whether the image is rectangular or round with polar coordinates

We guess that colour precision (grayscale depth) approximates 24 bits per pixel, judging by what is found acceptable on computer screens, for printing, for digital cameras, etc.

We estimate the overall image size for a single image at an instant in time to be approximately 24 Megabits

• One frame is 1000 pixels wide and 1000 pixels high, thus 1 Mega pixel. (Current digital cameras range between 2 and 10 Mega pixels.) With 24 colour bits per pixel we arrive at 24 Megabits per image.

Frame rate, i.e. fusion (persistence) of the image, is approximately 18 frames per second, when separate images coalesce into continuous motion

• movies and digital video typically use higher rates, such as 24, 30, or 60 frames per second
• There is individual variation

The minimal combined rate is

• One frame is 24 Megabits
• Assuming 18 fps, the minimal bitrate is 432 Megabits per second
• 25.920 Gigabits per minute

In evaluating these numbers, we have to keep in mind that we have been very conservative in focusing on minimal resolution, and that we have not included hearing and other senses.