The Pinhole Camera Model demonstrates the operation of a pinhole camera. Light rays leaving the top and bottom on an object of height h, pass through a pinhole, and strike a flat screen. These rays travel in straight lines in accord with the principles of geometric optics. Drag the object and observe the image on the camera screen. Simple geometry shows that the image is inverted and that the ratio of the image to object size (the magnification) is the same as the ratio of the image to object distance.
The Pinhole Camera Model was developed using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double clicking the jar file will run the program if Java is installed. You can modify this simulation if you have EJS installed by right-clicking within the map and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item.
Please note that this resource requires
at least version 1.6 of Java (JRE).
Pinhole Camera Activity
An activity that uses a pinhole to measure the size of the sun. download 320kb .pdf download 200kb .docx
Last Modified: June 6, 2012
Rights: This material is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 by Anne Cox.
Pinhole Camera Source Code
The source code zip archive contains an EJS-XML representation of the Pinhole Camera Model. Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to compile and run this model using EJS. download 24kb .zip
Last Modified: April 20, 2012
W. Christian, Computer Program PINHOLE CAMERA MODEL (2012), WWW Document, (https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=11787&DocID=2642).
Christian, W. (2012). Pinhole Camera Model [Computer software]. Retrieved October 10, 2024, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=11787&DocID=2642
Christian, Wolfgang. "Pinhole Camera Model." https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=11787&DocID=2642 (accessed 10 October 2024).
%A Wolfgang Christian %T Pinhole Camera Model %D April 20, 2012 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=11787&DocID=2642 %O application/java
%0 Computer Program %A Christian, Wolfgang %D April 20, 2012 %T Pinhole Camera Model %8 April 20, 2012 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=11787&DocID=2642
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