Friday, May 11, 2012

Astigmatism in SL

Aside from needing bifocals in my Real Life eyeglasses, I also suffer from Astigmatism. It is especially pronounced in dim light, like when riding in a car at night. The lines on the road blur and multiply almost to the point of complete double vision. Well, it seems that the Second Life viewer has the same issue.

As seen in the Vehicle Sandbox, Fortuna (SLurl) and mainland roads, as well.
The further you look into the distance on SL roadways that are created with side-by-side prims and mirrored textures, the more pronounced the blurred, astigmatic effect becomes.

A possible explanation? The construction method. This is from back in the day when the maximum prim size that Moles were allowed to use was 10m3.
I've seen this in not only the Official Viewer, but with Third Party Viewers, as well so it might be the rendering engine or it could be my graphics hardware. It doesn't seem to affect all receding straight lines, just the ones created by abutted prims with textures like these road markings. Anyone else notice this?

2 comments:

Argent Stonecutter said...

Turn on Anisotropic Filtering?

Uccie Poultry said...

@Argent That was my first thought, but when I checked I saw that the 2X level was set. I often bump up to like 16X for high-quality photos, though this one was shot at 2X. I zipped back and it disappeared by the time I hit 8X. Interesting. Now if I could get my eye doctor to flip that switch on my corneas ... :D