The Visual System

The human visual system is remarkable instrument. It features two mobile acquisition units each has formidable preprocessing circuitry placed at a remote location from the central processing system (brain). Its primary task include transmitting images with a viewing angle of at least 140deg and resolution of 1 arc min over a limited capacity carrier, the million or so fibers in each optic nerve through these fibers the signals are passed to the so called higher visual cortex of the brain
The nerve system can achieve this type of high volume data transfer by confining such capability to just part of the retina surface, whereas the center of the retina has a 1:1 ration between the photoreceptors and the transmitting elements, the far periphery has a ratio of 300:1. This results in gradual shift in resolution and other system parameters.
At the brain's highest level the visual cortex an impressive array of feature extraction mechanisms can rapidly adjust the eye's position to sudden movements in the peripherals filed of objects too small to se when stationary. The visual system can resolve spatial depth differences by combining signals from both eyes with a precision less than one tenth the size of a single photoreceptor.