Visual fields are of particular interest to comparative biologists studying the complex interplay between anatomy, physiology, ecology, and optics. Visual fields have been measured in nearly 100 bird species, and investigators have uncovered associations between quantitative aspects of visual fields and foraging behavior, skull dimensions, and even brain morphology. However, limiting factors including time, access to living subjects, and experimental constraints complicate study of the visual apparatus of rare, endangered, or extinct species. We introduce a modeling technique called virtual ophthalmoscopy (VO) for estimating visual fields of vertebrates. We compare this in-silico technique, which draws on geometrical optics, morphometrics of eyes, and 3D visualization, against experimental data from 12 bird species from behavioral literature. Known values of optical properties, including axial length, lens curvatures, and refractive index, are used to construct and test virtual, schematic eyes in ray-tracing software. Resulting visual fields are measured in 3D-visualization software. These measurements are compared qualitatively and quantitatively with visual fields from the literature. Schematic eyeballs and in-silico visual fields, after iterative improvements using anatomical information from cadaveric specimens, approximate experimental data to the extent of falling within the range of intraspecific variation, suggesting VO is a viable technique for modeling visual fields. Virtual ophthalmoscopy creates an opportunity to expand the sample of species for which visual fields can be quantified and allows new hypotheses regarding the evolution of visual systems to be tested.

中文翻译：

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使用虚拟检眼镜对视野建模：结合几何光学，形态计量学和3D可视化以验证跨学科技术。

对于研究解剖学，生理学，生态学和光学学之间复杂相互作用的比较生物学家而言，视野特别有意义。已经对近100种鸟类测量了视野，研究人员发现视野的定量方面与觅食行为，颅骨尺寸甚至大脑形态之间存在关联。但是，限制因素包括时间，接触活体以及实验性限制因素，使得对稀有，濒临灭绝或灭绝物种的视觉装置的研究变得复杂。我们介绍一种称为虚拟检眼镜（VO）的建模技术，用于估计脊椎动物的视野。我们将这种计算机内技术与行为文献中12种鸟类的实验数据进行了比较，该技术采用了几何光学，眼睛的形态计量学和3D可视化技术。已知的光学特性值（包括轴向长度，透镜曲率和折射率）用于在光线跟踪软件中构造和测试虚拟的示意性眼睛。在3D可视化软件中测量得到的视野。将这些测量结果与文献中的视野进行定性和定量比较。在使用尸体标本的解剖学信息进行迭代改进后，示意性眼球和硅内视野可以近似地将实验数据降低到种内变异范围内，这表明VO是建模视野的可行技术。虚拟检眼镜为扩大可以对其视野进行量化的物种样本提供了机会，并允许对要测试的视觉系统的演变提出新的假设。