Design Spotlight: The New Telemeter Sighting Scale
2021-10-18
In response to feedback from users who report issues with reading the Telemeter measuring scale while sighting -- the fixed distance from eye to scale can create problems for short-sighted people -- we created a new Telemeter sighting scale inspired by surveyor's instruments with scale marks in a blocky shape resembling the letter E.
Enhancing the sighting scale of the Wndsn Telemeter.
The newly developed sighting scale uses blocks instead of lines as scale marks, by filling every other pair of lines with solid color. This increases the width of the smallest element to visually discern from 0.25 mm to 1 mm, which yields a fourfold increase in readability and hence accuracy of measuring results.
The improved sighting scale is disability-enhanced and an improvement for everyone as it helps with the visual switch in distance between the far object and the close scale. We can't solve low visual acuity but we can help around it. Simple scale marks -- lines -- are .25 mm wide at a distance of .75 mm for a total distance of 1 mm between marks. The improved scale marks -- blocks -- are each 1 mm wide, alternating between 1 full mm of black and 1 full mm of white blocks. This removes the need to discern the .25 mm marks of the simple scales as the smallest element is 1 mm wide: 4 times the width of the smallest element of the simple scale.
Note that for the use of the Telemeter nomogram, the far left edge of the instrument is still used to calculate (as opposed to the inner, "boxed" scales).