Radius of projected sphere in screen space

The illustrated accepted answer above is excellent, but I needed a solution without knowing the field of view, just a matrix to transform between world and screen space, so I had to adapt the solution.

1. Reusing some variable names from the other answer, calculate the start point of the spherical cap (the point where line h meets line d):

   capOffset = cos(asin(l / d)) * r
   capCenter = sphereCenter + ( sphereNormal * capOffset )
   

   where capCenter and sphereCenter are points in world space, and sphereNormal is a normalized vector pointing along d, from the sphere center towards the camera.

2. Transform the point to screen space:

   capCenter2 = matrix.transform(capCenter)
   

3. Add 1 (or any amount) to the x pixel coordinate:

   capCenter2.x += 1
   

4. Transform it back to world space:

   capCenter2 = matrix.inverse().transform(capCenter2)
   

5. Measure the distance between the original and new points in world space, and divide into the amount you added to get a scale factor:

   scaleFactor = 1 / capCenter.distance(capCenter2)
   

6. Multiply that scale factor by the cap radius h to get the visible screen radius in pixels:

   screenRadius = h * scaleFactor
   

Indeed, with a perspective projection you need to compute the height of the sphere "horizon" from the eye / center of the camera (this "horizon" is determined by rays from the eye tangent to the sphere).

Notations:

d: distance between the eye and the center of the sphere
r: radius of the sphere
l: distance between the eye and a point on the sphere "horizon", l = sqrt(d^2 - r^2)
h: height / radius of the sphere "horizon"
theta: (half-)angle of the "horizon" cone from the eye
phi: complementary angle of theta

h / l = cos(phi)

but:

r / d = cos(phi)

so, in the end:

h = l * r / d = sqrt(d^2 - r^2) * r / d

Then once you have h, simply apply the standard formula (the one from the question you linked) to get the projected radius pr in the normalized viewport:

pr = cot(fovy / 2) * h / z

with z the distance from the eye to the plane of the sphere "horizon":

z = l * cos(theta) = sqrt(d^2 - r^2) * h / r

so:

pr = cot(fovy / 2) * r / sqrt(d^2 - r^2)

And finally, multiply pr by height / 2 to get the actual screen radius in pixels.

What follows is a small demo done with three.js. The sphere distance, radius and the vertical field of view of the camera can be changed by using respectively the n / f, m / p and s / w pairs of keys. A yellow line segment rendered in screen-space shows the result of the computation of the radius of the sphere in screen-space. This computation is done in the function computeProjectedRadius().

projected-sphere.js:

"use strict";

function computeProjectedRadius(fovy, d, r) {
  var fov;

  fov = fovy / 2 * Math.PI / 180.0;

//return 1.0 / Math.tan(fov) * r / d; // Wrong
  return 1.0 / Math.tan(fov) * r / Math.sqrt(d * d - r * r); // Right
}

function Demo() {
  this.width = 0;
  this.height = 0;

  this.scene = null;
  this.mesh = null;
  this.camera = null;

  this.screenLine = null;
  this.screenScene = null;
  this.screenCamera = null;

  this.renderer = null;

  this.fovy = 60.0;
  this.d = 10.0;
  this.r = 1.0;
  this.pr = computeProjectedRadius(this.fovy, this.d, this.r);
}

Demo.prototype.init = function() {
  var aspect;
  var light;
  var container;

  this.width = window.innerWidth;
  this.height = window.innerHeight;

  // World scene
  aspect = this.width / this.height;
  this.camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(this.fovy, aspect, 0.1, 100.0);

  this.scene = new THREE.Scene();
  this.scene.add(THREE.AmbientLight(0x1F1F1F));

  light = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xFFFFFF);
  light.position.set(1.0, 1.0, 1.0).normalize();
  this.scene.add(light);

  // Screen scene
  this.screenCamera = new THREE.OrthographicCamera(-aspect, aspect,
                                                   -1.0, 1.0,
                                                   0.1, 100.0);
  this.screenScene = new THREE.Scene();

  this.updateScenes();

  this.renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({
    antialias: true
  });
  this.renderer.setSize(this.width, this.height);
  this.renderer.domElement.style.position = "relative";
  this.renderer.autoClear = false;

  container = document.createElement('div');
  container.appendChild(this.renderer.domElement);
  document.body.appendChild(container);
}

Demo.prototype.render = function() {
  this.renderer.clear();
  this.renderer.setViewport(0, 0, this.width, this.height);
  this.renderer.render(this.scene, this.camera);
  this.renderer.render(this.screenScene, this.screenCamera);
}

Demo.prototype.updateScenes = function() {
  var geometry;

  this.camera.fov = this.fovy;
  this.camera.updateProjectionMatrix();

  if (this.mesh) {
    this.scene.remove(this.mesh);
  }

  this.mesh = new THREE.Mesh(
    new THREE.SphereGeometry(this.r, 16, 16),
    new THREE.MeshLambertMaterial({
      color: 0xFF0000
    })
  );
  this.mesh.position.z = -this.d;
  this.scene.add(this.mesh);

  this.pr = computeProjectedRadius(this.fovy, this.d, this.r);

  if (this.screenLine) {
    this.screenScene.remove(this.screenLine);
  }

  geometry = new THREE.Geometry();
  geometry.vertices.push(new THREE.Vector3(0.0, 0.0, -1.0));
  geometry.vertices.push(new THREE.Vector3(0.0, -this.pr, -1.0));

  this.screenLine = new THREE.Line(
    geometry,
    new THREE.LineBasicMaterial({
      color: 0xFFFF00
    })
  );

  this.screenScene = new THREE.Scene();
  this.screenScene.add(this.screenLine);
}

Demo.prototype.onKeyDown = function(event) {
  console.log(event.keyCode)
  switch (event.keyCode) {
    case 78: // 'n'
      this.d /= 1.1;
      this.updateScenes();
      break;
    case 70: // 'f'
      this.d *= 1.1;
      this.updateScenes();
      break;
    case 77: // 'm'
      this.r /= 1.1;
      this.updateScenes();
      break;
    case 80: // 'p'
      this.r *= 1.1;
      this.updateScenes();
      break;
    case 83: // 's'
      this.fovy /= 1.1;
      this.updateScenes();
      break;
    case 87: // 'w'
      this.fovy *= 1.1;
      this.updateScenes();
      break;
  }
}

Demo.prototype.onResize = function(event) {
  var aspect;

  this.width = window.innerWidth;
  this.height = window.innerHeight;

  this.renderer.setSize(this.width, this.height);

  aspect = this.width / this.height;
  this.camera.aspect = aspect;
  this.camera.updateProjectionMatrix();

  this.screenCamera.left = -aspect;
  this.screenCamera.right = aspect;
  this.screenCamera.updateProjectionMatrix();
}

function onLoad() {
  var demo;

  demo = new Demo();
  demo.init();

  function animationLoop() {
    demo.render();
    window.requestAnimationFrame(animationLoop);
  }

  function onResizeHandler(event) {
    demo.onResize(event);
  }

  function onKeyDownHandler(event) {
    demo.onKeyDown(event);
  }

  window.addEventListener('resize', onResizeHandler, false);
  window.addEventListener('keydown', onKeyDownHandler, false);
  window.requestAnimationFrame(animationLoop);
}

index.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Projected sphere</title>
      <style>
        body {
            background-color: #000000;
        }
      </style>
      <script src="http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/three.js/r61/three.min.js"></script>
      <script src="projected-sphere.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body onLoad="onLoad()">
      <div id="container"></div>
    </body>
</html>

Let the sphere have radius r and be seen at a distance d from the observer. The projection plane is at distance f from the observer.

The sphere is seen under the half angle asin(r/d), so the apparent radius is f.tan(asin(r/d)), which can be written as f . r / sqrt(d^2 - r^2). [The wrong formula being f . r / d.]