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Optics

Euclid · treatise

Euclidvision

The earliest surviving Greek treatise on perspective, treating sight as rays issuing from the eye.

In the Optics, Euclid applies geometry to vision, positing that the eye sends out straight rays in a cone and that the apparent size of a thing depends on the angle its rays subtend. From these assumptions he derives, as theorems, the laws of apparent magnitude, foreshortening, and perspective — the geometric root of all later theories of vision and picture-making.

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