Understanding the View Frustum
Dolly Zoom (AKA the "Trombone" Effect)
The Size of the Frustum at a Given Distance from the Camera
A cross-section of the view frustum at a certain distance from the cameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info
See in Glossary defines a rectangle in world space that frames the visible area. It is sometimes useful to calculate the size of this rectangle at a given distance, or find the distance where the rectangle is a given size. For example, if a moving camera needs to keep an object (such as the player) completely in shot at all times then it must not get so close that part of that object is cut off.
The height of the frustum at a given distance (both in world units) can be obtained with the following formula:
var frustumHeight = 2.0f * distance * Mathf.Tan(camera.fieldOfView * 0.5f * Mathf.Deg2Rad);
…and the process can be reversed to calculate the distance required to give a specified frustum height:
var distance = frustumHeight * 0.5f / Mathf.Tan(camera.fieldOfView * 0.5f * Mathf.Deg2Rad);
It is also possible to calculate the FOV angle when the height and distance are known:
var camera.fieldOfView = 2.0f * Mathf.Atan(frustumHeight * 0.5f / distance) * Mathf.Rad2Deg;
Each of these calculations involves the height of the frustum but this can be obtained from the width (and vice versa) very easily:
var frustumWidth = frustumHeight * camera.aspect;
var frustumHeight = frustumWidth / camera.aspect;
Did you find this page useful? Please give it a rating:
Thanks for rating this page!
What kind of problem would you like to report?
Is something described here not working as you expect it to? It might be a Known Issue. Please check with the Issue Tracker at issuetracker.unity3d.com.
Thanks for letting us know! This page has been marked for review based on your feedback.
If you have time, you can provide more information to help us fix the problem faster.
Provide more information
You've told us this page needs code samples. If you'd like to help us further, you could provide a code sample, or tell us about what kind of code sample you'd like to see:
You've told us there are code samples on this page which don't work. If you know how to fix it, or have something better we could use instead, please let us know:
You've told us there is information missing from this page. Please tell us more about what's missing:
You've told us there is incorrect information on this page. If you know what we should change to make it correct, please tell us:
You've told us this page has unclear or confusing information. Please tell us more about what you found unclear or confusing, or let us know how we could make it clearer:
You've told us there is a spelling or grammar error on this page. Please tell us what's wrong:
You've told us this page has a problem. Please tell us more about what's wrong:
Thanks for helping to make the Unity documentation better!
Understanding the View Frustum
Dolly Zoom (AKA the "Trombone" Effect)