Text on Curved Monitor

[kwj]

Hello All,

I am looking at buying a new monitor and I have been curious about curved screens. I went down to my local store to check out how gimmicky curves really were. I was pretty skeptical at first, but was pleasantly surprised after seeing one. I felt really immersed by it. I imagine with actual home use that movies, videos, games, viewing pictures, etc. with curved screen might be something pretty neat.

What I am more curious about is what text looks on a curved monitor. Does text look funny, (curved or stretched), near the edges? What do things look like with two word documents open and split to separate sides of the screen? Is editing pictures or drawing difficult near the edges of the screen? Really is there any difference between a curved screen and a flat screen when doing something other than videos, movies, games, pictures, etc.?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Solandri]

If you're sitting close enough to the monitor that the difference between a curved and flat screen is noticeable, then the curved screen will display less distorted images.

The wider the angle of view a flat monitor covers (i.e. the closer you sit to it), the more distorted the edges and corners get. If you've ever seen an extreme wide-angle rectilinear photo (straight lines stay straight, but circles get squashed and stretched, that's how the image needs to be distorted to "look right" on a flat screen. If you break up the screen into equal angle segments (say 1 degree), then the 1 degree segment in the middle ends up covering fewer pixels than the 1 degree segment towards the edges. Consequently, to make the image appear correct, objects near the edges have to span more pixels to be the same angular size as objects in the middle, and thus appear undistorted.

https://i.imgur.com/h6eKRfq.jpg

Curved screens are more like a fisheye lens (constant angular width - round objects remain round, but straight lines end up curved). The image appears distorted if displayed on a flat screen. But if you project a fisheye image at the correct angular width onto a hemisphere, it's actually an accurate representation of what you'd see in real life. Likewise, if you're sitting in the sweet spot of a curved screen, the angular width of each pixel is the same. And computer-generated isometric graphical elements like text and windows will appear more accurate than on a flat screen. Whether pictures look better or worse depend on the type of lens used (rectilinear or fisheye) and the angular width of the lens relative to the angular width of the monitor.

If you're not sitting in the curved monitor's sweet spot, then all bets are off.

That said, curved screens are pretty much a marketing gimmick. The engineering reason they exist is that as monitors become thinner, they lose their rigidity. Curving them restores rigidity. Take a piece of paper and try to stand it up on a table while holing it flat by the two bottom corners. It will tend to flop over. Now curve the paper slightly as if it were a curved monitor. It won't flop over anymore. Marketers tried to spin a visual rationale for the curve after the fact. From a practical standpoint, unless the screen is covering more than about 60 degrees of your field of view, you're highly unlikely to see any difference between curved or flat.

 

[kwj]

If you're sitting close enough to the monitor that the difference between a curved and flat screen is noticeable, then the curved screen will display less distorted images.

The wider the angle of view a flat monitor covers (i.e. the closer you sit to it), the more distorted the edges and corners get. If you've ever seen an extreme wide-angle rectilinear photo (straight lines stay straight, but circles get squashed and stretched, that's how the image needs to be distorted to "look right" on a flat screen. If you break up the screen into equal angle segments (say 1 degree), then the 1 degree segment in the middle ends up covering fewer pixels than the 1 degree segment towards the edges. Consequently, to make the image appear correct, objects near the edges have to span more pixels to be the same angular size as objects in the middle, and thus appear undistorted.

https://i.imgur.com/h6eKRfq.jpg

Curved screens are more like a fisheye lens (constant angular width - round objects remain round, but straight lines end up curved). The image appears distorted if displayed on a flat screen. But if you project a fisheye image at the correct angular width onto a hemisphere, it's actually an accurate representation of what you'd see in real life. Likewise, if you're sitting in the sweet spot of a curved screen, the angular width of each pixel is the same. And computer-generated isometric graphical elements like text and windows will appear more accurate than on a flat screen. Whether pictures look better or worse depend on the type of lens used (rectilinear or fisheye) and the angular width of the lens relative to the angular width of the monitor.

If you're not sitting in the curved monitor's sweet spot, then all bets are off.

That said, curved screens are pretty much a marketing gimmick. The engineering reason they exist is that as monitors become thinner, they lose their rigidity. Curving them restores rigidity. Take a piece of paper and try to stand it up on a table while holing it flat by the two bottom corners. It will tend to flop over. Now curve the paper slightly as if it were a curved monitor. It won't flop over anymore. Marketers tried to spin a visual rationale for the curve after the fact. From a practical standpoint, unless the screen is covering more than about 60 degrees of your field of view, you're highly unlikely to see any difference between curved or flat.

Thanks for the reply Solandri!

Apologies, but I am a little confused by your very technical response. I am going to attempt to summarize your opinion... As long as someone is sitting in the "sweet spot," (what distance that is I don't know), they will not notice any differences between a curved and flat screen, correct?

 

[Solandri]

tl;dr version: For minimal or zero distortion:

If objects in the image are the same size in pixels regardless of location on the monitor (graphical UIs, photos taken with a fisheye lens), then:

• 
  ■the curved monitor's image will be accurate when you sit in its sweet spot.
  ■the flat monitor's image will be accurate when you sit infinitely far away.

If the pixels in the image are distorted to be rectilinear (e.g. the photo I linked above - straight lines remain straight), then:

• 
  ■the curved monitor's image can never be accurate.
  ■the flat monitor's image will be accurate when you sit so the monitor's angular size matches the angle of view of the lens used to take the photo.

But unless the monitor and/or photo occupy more than about a 60 degree angle of view, the distortion in all these cases is minimal, and you're unlikely to be able to notice it.