Eye Charts If you want to improve your vision with natural vision improvement techniques, such as the

Bates Method, you need an eye chart. With an eye chart, you can perform various eye exercises, and, of course, an eye chart provides an objective way for you to see your progress as you improve your visual fitness. As you experiment with various vision improvement techniques, the eye chart can help you decide which exercises work and which ones don't work for you.

"Vision Without Glasses" programCompletely Natural Way To Improve Your Eyesight. Guaranteed! VisionWithoutGlasses.com

Read Clearly Naturally Got Presbyopia (farsighted)? Want to read small print without your glasses? JanetGoodrichMethod.com

Check out the eyechart download section for free eye charts, ready to print out (or use on screen) and use in measuring and training various aspects of vision; or, follow the instructions on how to make your own eye chart!

SNELLEN EYE CHART

The chart is usually read while standing at a distance of 20 feet. Acuity is represented as a fraction, with the distance at which you are standing being the numerator (top part of fraction), and the normal maximum legible viewing distance ("Distance" on the chart above) as the denominator (bottom of fraction). So if, at 20 feet, you can read the letters on the row marked "40", this means you have visual acuity of 20/40 or better: 1/2 normal. From 10 feet, if the smallest letters you could read were on the "40" line, this would give you an acuity of 10/40: 1/4 normal. If you are nearsighted, your vision will become more normal the closer you stand to the chart.

How do you use your eye chart? Tell us about it on the mailing list!

Free eye charts to download!

Classic Eye Chart: Joel Schneider's 3-page Snellen Chart plus near vision testing card

Modern Standard: ETDRS charts based on those provided on the National Eye Institute's charts page. The following charts have correctly-labelled lines from 40ft to 2ft suitable for printing on letter sized paper, and feature vector graphics for a sharper image (unlike the maximum 300dpi, not-to-scale charts provided by the N.E.I.).

o Chart R o Chart 1 o Chart 2

Interactive Eye Chart: Alejandro Saksida's Flash-based Ultimate Random Snellen Chart generator, version 3.1 (updated January 12, 2006):

o Read Instructions.

________________________________________________/@\ . , ' \|\/___,__________________________________________/| 12 January, 2006 . ' ' || || The Ultimate || Random Snellen Chart Generator || v3.1 || " for Macromedia Flash || Player || |

| |

|, . . -by Alejandro Saksida-|| ' (acsaksida@hotmail.com)|| || Latest versions can always be found at || http://www.i-see.org/random_snellen ||______________________________________________|_| @_\ ' ' \ \__/____________________'_______________________/

__________________________________________| |_| Index: | || ------ | || | || - What's new? | || - Introduction | || - Use | || - Some PRETTY IMPORTANT hints | || - Wanna print? | || - Final comments | || - History | || - Rights | ||__________________________________________| | |___________________________________________|

__________________ / \

| What's new? : |\ \__________________/ |

\_________________/

New to v3.1-Bug fix! The printing function printed the Contrast dialog.

Oops... Luckily Jim Tackett reported this bug and now it's fixed.-Changed the image of the printing, so that no one gets confused

anymore about the settings.

New to v3-Recoded everything, optimized code and redesigned completely. Now

it looks better but it's smaller :D-Added contrast button. Now you can change gradually the color of

the characters and the background for contrast sensitivity and night vision training.

-Remade printing setting, now you can choose wether to print rulers or not and it reminds you to change the settings for it to work properly

-Remade the animals pictures because they used to overlap and dissappear. Now they work perfectly

-Added support for 1024x768 screen.-Interface and rulers fade to dissappear when not used to avoid

them from distracting you-If you point a line, a red underline appears, if you click it, the

characters on that line dissappear. Click again to make them reappear. -Completely redesigned interface. It looks better and it's a far

more solid.-The settings of each section are sticky. That is, they don't

switch back when you change section.-The intro can be skipped now.

New to v2.5-Renamed Kay Pictures to Pictures (more correct use)-Added two more possibilities in the Pictures: Food and Animals

(now Animals is as default), there's a little combobox at the bottom from which

you can choose the mode you need.-Fixed the clipping of the Symbols in the Pictures. Yay!

New to V2.1-Removed the ruler of the printed version (Unnecesarily

distracting, check the "Wanna print?" section)

-Made the Tumbling Es square so no height guess is possible.-There were no 'Z's (!!??). Added 'Z's.-There were 'W's. Those are forbidden in a Snellen Chart (some

rule). Erradicated 'W's. ('M's have the same trouble, but they were erradicated from the 2.0 on).

-Fixed a bit the Pictures (some of them got cutted by the right side, and still

happens regretably.. I don't know how to fix this, so if anybody has an idea...)

New to V2.0This version has a lot of updates, I'll list them below:- It's now possible to print- Red underlines can be placed in any chosen row by just clicking

on it- 8 position tumbling Es were eliminated to be replaced by Cs

(Landolt Cs)- A new cool intro and loading screen

- A much better interface- Fixed the low performance bug of the last version (?!)- Totally reprogrammed for Flash MX!(faster, printable, less sized

player download, etc.)- Landolt Cs chart added- Pictures chart added- Renamed Randomly Oriented Es to Tumbling Es :)

___________________ / \

| Introduction: |\ \___________________/ | \__________________/

A Snellen Card is something that gets old after some time if you have an

specific one. This starts to become a problem when you remember every

line without even looking at it. That happened to me more than once,

limitating and falsifying my advance, that's why I've created this random

letter Snellen chart.This chart not only generates random snellen charts but also

Landolt C's, Tumbling 'E's and Pictures in different flavors.Enough introduction, time for some handy details.

________________ / \

| Use: |\ \________________/ | \_______________/

First, it's very probable that you need not much documentation because the

"program" is very WYSIWYG (dumbass-proof) and however you (closely for

sure) know how to use a Snellen card. This version anyway has got some

important changes in the interface so I'm anyway going to explain briefly

the use of this program and, later, give you some PRETTY IMPORTANT

and useful HINTS about this program. But let's go first for the use

instructions:

Use (both on-line and off-line):Load (need Flash player for this, you can download it from

Macromedia's site or just try accessing the Snellen card, if you don't have the

plug-in, automatically it'll take you where you can download the Flash

Player),

General to all tabs interface usage:

Randomize button: cycles the charts through infinite random combinations.

Pointing at any row: displays a red underline over the pointed character line.

Click to make that character line dissappear. Click again to make it reappear.

Print button: Displays the print dialog. There's a checkbox that allows you to

print or not the rulers to the left. After clicking OK, it shows a procedure to do

with the next window. Please follow it, although, unlike the previous version,

not doing so shouldn't make a complete disaster.

Contrast button: Displays the print dialog. Drag the tuners to adjust the blackness

or whiteness of the background and the characters. You'll preview it on the back,

but if you don't like the results, just cancel.

Sections tabs: Click on each to change the type of chart to display

Sections specific interface usage:

Snellen:

Rounded Font checkbox: it's checked by default but if you uncheck it, you see the Snellen

chart in a more square font, this is, Arial. If you check it again, it'll go back

to the Courier font.

Pictures:

Combobox at the top left: Change this between symbols, food and animals figure sets.

Off-line use: Jjust unzip (if you're reading this, probably this step has already been done) the file somewhere on your disk, go there

and openthe html with your favourite Browser (with the "Work

Disconnected" kind button checked if it isn't already) and you're done!

_______________________________________ / \

| Some PRETTY IMPORTANT hints |\ \______________________________________/ | \_____________________________________/

I bet most of you won't read all these hints. I don't wanna bore you, so

here are their importance levels:

[1]: MUST read{2}: Important(3): Just a hint

[1] If you have Internet Explorer, use the Full Screen (F11 key) while using

it. If you don't, see if there are any Full Screen button somewhere, if

there isn't, consider having IE because it'll drive you mad to use it on

a smaller screen.

[1] If you have a 14" monitor, use it at 800x600 or 1024x768 for real size reference.

I've made it that way mostly because it was originally designed for

personal use (and left it because it's the most common monitor and

resolution). Also, I've been told that it's almost correct in 1024x768 on 800x600 mode

in a 16" monitor.

{2} Else, if you don't have a 14/16" monitor or you cannot use the 800x600

/ 1024x768 resolution, not everything is lost, there is a way to get

ahead: first, measure the big first letter (initially an E) in inches,

and, if you use to step at 20ft (*), multiply that number for 17.391 and

that will give you the distance you should stand at measured in feet.

If you use to stand at 10 ft (*) (mainly for lack of vast space which is

my case and, I imagine of many others) the multiplier to use would be

8.695 (see it's the half as 10 ft is the half of 20 ft). I've been

testing it, sizing it at distance as good as I could in two different

scales and everything seems to be in order.

(*): Of couse, the choice of the distance will be fixed to your

ultimate objective, if you choose to stand at 20 ft, your objec-

tive will be the 6th line, otherwise, if you choose to stand at

10 ft, your ultimate objective will be the 8th line and so on

{2} If you have a glass protector (those for radiation that darken the

screen), take it away while reading. Also the brightness and contrast of

the monitor will affect, but that depends too much on the monitor, see

what fits better to you but I recommend you to put the monitor on the

max contrast and a reasonable brightness.

(3) If you do this daily and take note of what you see to compare it when

you're nearer, I mean, you stand far, guess what the whole Snellen chart

says, taking note of that "prediction" for later comparation when you're

nearer to the screen (that's the way I do it), it's VERY useful to have

one of those toys called "Magic Slate" or like, you know, those ones

that you can draw and erase and draw again. It'll become a good partner

if you get accostummed to use one of them.

(3) Try to avoid looking at the screen after clicking the Randomize

button or you will be cheating ;)

(3) If you stand at 10 ft, your last objective will be the 8th line, that

may be a problem because that line is a bit beyond the reach of the

screen (at least in the common monitor/res.). There are two solutions

for this kind of problem: go back to the computer to scroll the bar down

or (what I found to better) move the scroll bar before you go far. To

calibrate it for everything to fit and still not look directly at the

screen (believe me it becomes a problem), you can use the first reading

at the top left, the one which says "70 ft - 21 m", scroll the bar until

this line disappears almost completely and that's it, the page is alig-

ned to cover from lines 1st to 8th (well, not much of the 1st, but you

can still distinguish what is it; however, if you can't see that letter,

you won't need to scroll the bar down as you won't see that "extended

rest" anyway)

_________________ / \

| Wanna print? |\ \_________________/| \_______________/

About the size it'll be printed, it should be ok for any paper which has

the width sized as an A4 paper which is the most common one. However,

to check sizes, measure the first letter, it should be of about 1,25" /

3,2cm.The print options however aren't much, so if for ANY reason it

doesn'tfit, you'll have to press the "Print Screen" key on your

keyboard, load it on any Image edition program, paste in a new image and

print itfrom there. And use that size (1,25" / 3,2cm. for the first

letter forreference to change the paper's print resolution to fit the real

size it should have.

______________________ / \

| Final comments |\ \______________________/ | \______________________/

Well, that's about it, I have nothing else to say by the moment, if you

have ANY ideas or comments, insults or money ;) please contact me. Also

about any other thing like this that could come in handy.

Many people did so and they made it by mail asking, so you see, you too

can become FAMOUS by throwing a good idea ;)

Seriously talking, if you do any cool suggestion that makes this program

to get better, I promise I'll put your name in this "Hall of Fame" :)

Oh and I just figured it'd make more sense to put the Hall of Fame ordered

backwards, like, the last first and the first last. Sorry to the first collaborators

but you have already had your time at the top ;)

Hall of Fame:---- -- ----

My apologies to another contributors to the version 3.1, as the person who

provided me with the current image you get when printing, I lost the mails and

I just don't have any more contact form. I'm sorry. To those of you, you know

who you are and well... this is my attempt to mention you. Thank you.

Thanks to Jim Tackett, he reported the bug at the printing that printed the

Contrast window for error.

Thanks to Chris Duffield, he was the one who suggested this black/white

button idea. That later became the contrast button you see, which later

made me remake the whole thing.

Thanks to Christine Smith, she suggested (asked if it was possible, actually)

a feature that makes character lines dissappear for easier use and less confusion.

Part of this release's push belongs to her.

Thanks to Zvi Zoblin, he gave me the food and animals fonts to use on the

Pictures.

Thanks to Ryan Roberts, he gave me the suggestion of the printability and

corrected me some of the errors of the 2.0 version.

Thanks to Rajiv Bhushan for one, the Arial/Sans Serif idea, and two, the

Tumbling E's chart.

Thanks to Harry Incs, the one who gave me the idea of the "different

resolution/monitor problem" solution and the one who inspired me to write

a longer version of this document (to be honest, to add this all after the

Introduction :)

-----

Also a call to anybody who has the knowledge: I've read somewhere that

there are some devices that "teach" you how to control the muscles of your

eyes. I'm pretty sure that such a thing would be a VERY BIG help to all of

us. If you do know how those machines work, I mean I'm sure they show you

something and tell you to do certain things and voila, you've learned to

control your eye muscles. THAT is something that could be very possibly

recreated in a computer program that I'm sure I could do. If anyone has

the knowledge about how that works, tell me and I'll do a program that

does the same thing except that this would be for free.

____________________ / \

| History |\ \____________________/|| \___________________/

So the "Final Comments" weren't final really, huh? :)Well, I know that, but the History of the Program is the most

boring part,

together with the "Rights" thing, so I've left them for the real end ;)

11-07-05: A mail from Jim Tacket reporting the bug of the printing arrived

The first bug in the history of this program gets fixed on this release.

15-03-05: A few mails from different people and questions and very specially

one from Chris Duffield has been holding me to this release. A total remake.. The biggest change so far, I think..

11-12-03: Inspired by Alex Eulenberg, I reconverted the txt file to html

so that you can browse it easier as well as change the text size

and such stuff.

26-11-03: A new surge of enthusiasm inspired by Zvi Zoblin. Corrected all

of the errors of the beta and remade the screen now with a kewl

logo. Added food and animals in the Pictures and fixed the

so disturbing clipping from the symbols at the Pictures.

??-10-03: Made 70% of the update to the new version with tons of bugs to

correct.. things that I didn't get why happened.. that and the

lack of time discouraged me a little on taking it to final.

22-04-03: Another mail by Ryan Roberts correct some of my errors of the

2.0 version. I corrected these errors and here it is updated to

a 2.1 version as minimal things were changed. Sorry for the

big delay but I've just got into Algebra studies right on that

moment and couldn't get it fixed before, plus some more trouble

that messed things up more than I expected (it didn't want to

obey my commands :) ) but victory came and here it is updated.

18-03-03: Inspired by a mail from Ryan Roberts, the Ultimate Random

Snellen Chart Generator v2.0 is done. Recoded the whole thing

for Flash MX, added a print button, underlines, Landolt Cs and

Pictures.

06-02-03: Finally the "Ultimate Snellen Chart" is made. I've called it

that way because it has at least to my knowledge all the charts

possible all in one in a 30kb file, that is less than a .gif

image with a chart :)

02-02-03: The E chart, at last working, was going to be sent separate as

the Arial Snellen chart... but, I noticed this was starting to

get messy as everything was in different places, different

files, with very like READMEs but having a different meaning

because they were all different programs.. a total mess. I've started that same day to develop a version that

mixed all the characteristics I've been adding.

26-01-03: Again, Bhushan gives me another idea: the one of the randomly

oriented E's chart. I start to develop it having a painfully

bad luck with it's progress

23-01-03: Rajiv Bhushan gives me the idea of an Arial version of the

chart. Version updated, this one was going to be added as

another chart. The only copies of this version was for Rajiv

Bhushan and for I-See.org's Webmaster for upload.

04-12-02: Harry Incs gives me the solution for the monitor resolution

problem with monitors of other sizes than 14". Updated the text

with a cute (IMHO) ASCII file with a lot more information than

before.

22-11-02: The very same Random Snellen chart was sent to I-See.org's

Webmaster, Alex Eulenberg for everyone's use. This version

had a very crappy txt within :)

Before: I've created the first Random Snellen chart for my own

that personal use.

_______________ / \

| Rights |\ \_______________/ | \______________/

This software used to be Whateverware but due to it's popularity I decided

I wanted it to become Spreadware. Yes, the idea is that you, enthusiast

user, help me spread this thing all over the World. Please always include

this file so we can keep it entire through all the way. Tell your friends, your

familiars, your optometrist, the sites you know, upload it to download sites,

tell your aunt, your granny, the dog, everyone.Your efforts will be much appreciated by both me and anyone who can

getsomething good out of this little project of mine. Thank you.

o Generate a Random Snellen Chart on the web. o Download a ZIP Archive of the generator for off-line use.

Vision Training Charts from Ray Gottlieb, O.D., Ph.D., with instructions. o Presbyopia Reduction Chart (PDF) -- helps you read fine print by training

convergence. Part of the Read Without Glasses Method, courtesy of the Cambridge Institute for Better Vision

o String Of Pearls (PDF) -- for improving 3D perception

Alex Eulenberg's 1-page Snellen Chart (20/20) o in GIF format (browser-viewable, also printable at 72 dpi) o in Macintosh PICT format (hi-resolution, downloadable & printable) o in Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) format (compatible with, among other

programs, WordPerfect for Windows.) o in PDF format.

Vic Cinc's Letter rows & grid of random tumbling E's o in PDF format o in PostScript format

Vic Cinc's Astigmatic mirror Egidio Rizzi's Vision Charts for Eyesight Improvement -- 10 charts for practicing

fusion, convergence, divergence, with notes on each exercise's applicability for nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.

Astigmatic Mirror

by Vic Cinc, Sydney, Australia.

For your very own astigmatic mirror, you may download the above color image, or make your own.

So now you have a picture of what looks like the iris of the eye. Place it on a window at eye height, and get back far enough so you can still make out most of the lines with your glasses/contacts off.

Okay. Look at the lines near the center. What do you notice? If you are astigmatic you will notice that some of the lines are darker in some directions than others. Get used to the wheel for a little while and experiment with it. Try tilting your head or looking at it sideways. Try looking around the inner or outer circle. Try just staring blankly past the wheel. Notice what happens in each case. Try blinking or yawning. Try palming for a minute or two. Try covering each eye with a hand quickly to see what the difference is between your eyes.

If you a "typical" astigmatic, you may see the lines near the horizontal are clearer and darker than the lines vertically. You may also find the lines near the horizontal are spaced further apart and the vertical spaced closer together. You might also find the inner circle in not quite round.

Try looking at it with your glasses on. If your glasses fully correct astigmatism, then all the lines should be the same darkness and distance apart. If your glasses do not correct the astigmatism properly than you will still see some lines darker than others.

Using the Astigmatic Mirror to Reduce Astigmatism

The astigmatic mirror gives you a direct and accurate record of your condition. You can use it as a direct feedback device, a mirror in which any changes you can make and learn to make will be instantly displayed.

Say you find the lines that are horizontal to be darker. Your aim is to make the vertical lines darker. So begin by removing any glasses/contacts, relaxing and taking a few deep breaths. Blinking naturaly and breathing normaly, find the line which is the faintest, and move your eye slowly and deliberatly up and down that line, imagining it to be getting darker and darker. Tell your self to relax, relax. And imagine that line to be getting darker and darker. The key is to relax your eye has much as you can. You may want to start by massaging around the eye, and maybe doing a couple of minutes of palming. With a bit of practice you will be able to make the lines in any orientation darker than the rest, but your goal is to make them all equally dark. If you are myopic its worthwhile to place your wheel on a window, as you get a lot of contrast between the black and fluoro colours of your wheel, and also you can check out the window to see what effect playing with the wheel is having on your vision. Its also very worthwhile putting one up at work and at home and whenever you get a break you can play with it and see what happens. The astigmatic mirror allows you to leverage your own visual distortion to work for your benefit.

How to draw your Astigmatic Mirror

Drawing the Wheel

For the wheel, you may use our PostScript, PDF, or GIF black-and-white templates, or follow these instructions:

You will need an A4 sheet of paper, a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a pencil and a 0.2mm black marker. Find the center of the paper, and using a pencil draw a circle almost as large as the paper (diameter 20cm) with the center of the circle at the center of the paper. draw another smaller circle from the same central point about radius 1cm. Then draw a line cutting the large circle in two, but not crossing over the inner small circle, ie, Leave the inner small circle blank. Then divide the two pies you have in two again. Again not drawing inside the inner circle. Now you have 4 pie shapes. Then divide each of these in two again, so you have eight wedges, and then again so you have 16 and then one final time. So you have a spoke every 10 degrees. The result looks like a bicycle wheel. Now using your marker draw over the spokes of the wheel with nice sharp dark black lines, make sure all the lines are the same darkness.

Coloring it in

Now you have your black on white wheel. Use a bright yellow and bright orange fluoro highlighter. The colors aren't important and you can even just leave it black and white. Outline each spoke of the wheel with the orange highlighter and fill in the gaps between spokes with yellow. Leave the inner circle white. Later you can experiment and choose colors that pleases you. The bright colors are useful because they attract the mind and stimulate all the visual meridians.

Make your own eye chart!

For those enterprising souls out there who would like to laserprint or draw by hand their own eye chart, or if you would like to verify that your printout is of the correct proportions, here are the specs: Distance (feet) 70 60 50 40 30 20 15 10 7 4letter ht (mm) 31 27 22 18 13 9 7 4 3 2letter ht (pt) 88 76 63 50 38 25 19 13 9 5font size (pt) 152 130 108 87 65 43 33 21 15 9

With the University at Buffalo's Interactive Visual Acuity Chart, you can display the letters or symbols for a specified Snellen line on your computer monitor at exactly the right size (note: you must follow the instructions for calibration).

Interpreting the table

"Distance" in the above table refers to the furthest distance from the chart at which a normal eye is able to read the letter. On a Snellen eye chart, rows of letters of a given size have the corresponding distance number next to them. Thus the row of 18mm letters is marked "40". The font must be Courier (or Courier Bold) in order for the "font size" in points to correspond to the indicated letter height. Courier Bold is the PostScript font that most closely approximates the official Snellen letters.