What vision loss looks like

Walk in Their Shoes

One park scene, seen eleven ways. Pick a condition, then step through its stages. The left view never changes; the right one is the same scene with sight taken away. These are approximations: two people with the same diagnosis can see very differently.

Try the simulator Compare the conditions

At a glance

ViewsEleven, from full sight to no light perceptionTunnel, center lost, scalloped patches, color gone, distortion, night, and loss from birth.
StagesEarly, mid and late, where a condition progressesLighting for the two conditions where light matters more than time; a range for the one present from birth.
Same scene, side by sideFull sight on the left, the condition on the rightSo the difference is the only thing that changes. On a phone, drag the slider.
ApproximationsNot a diagnosis, not a predictionA computer-rendered park, changed only by masks and filters. No real person's view is shown.

The simulator

Choose a condition. For the ones that progress, move along the track from early to late. The left view is always full sight; the right one is the same scene as that condition sees it.

Edges first

Center first

From birth

Pick a condition to see how it changes over time, with the light, or from person to person.

Showing: Full sight

A park path curving past a wooden bench and a lamp post toward trees and a distant pavilion, sharp and in full color from edge to edge. — Full sight

Scene: one computer-rendered park, edited frame by frame from a single base image so every view lines up. Each view is labeled by what it shows, never by a person.

Full sight

Sharp from the center to the edges, with color, by day and by night. Everything that follows is this scene with something taken away.

Compare the conditions

What usually goes first, and what tends to stay. Every row is sourced; your own condition page has the detail.

Condition	What usually changes first	Center	Edges	Night	Color	From the inside
Retinitis pigmentosa	Night vision, usually from childhood	Often kept for years	Narrow over time	Lost early	Usually kept until late	What it looks like
Usher syndrome	Hearing, then night vision (the RP pattern)	Often kept for years	Narrow over time	Lost early	Usually kept until late	What it looks like
Choroideremia	Night vision, then patches of side vision	Kept until late	Patchy loss	Lost early	Usually kept	What it looks like
Stargardt disease	Central detail: reading, faces	Lost	Kept	Usually kept	Can fade	What it looks like
Best disease	Central vision blurs or distorts	Blurred, distorted	Kept	Usually kept	Usually kept	What it looks like
Cone dystrophy	Detail, color and comfort in bright light	Blurred	Kept, then narrows in cone-rod forms	Kept, then lost	Fades	What it looks like
Achromatopsia	Present from birth: color absent, bright light painful	Reduced detail	Kept	Kept	Absent	What it looks like
Leber congenital amaurosis	Severe loss from infancy	Severely reduced	Severely reduced	Lost	Varies	What it looks like

Sources: National Eye Institute and MedlinePlus Genetics condition pages, listed at the end.

How to read these

They show a pattern, not a personReal vision loss is uneven, changes with light, and differs between the two eyes. The views here are the textbook shape of each condition.
The brain fills gapsPeople don't see a black hole or a black ring; the missing part is simply not there, the way you don't see your own blind spot. We darken lost field so you can see where it is, and fill a central blind spot with a blur of its surroundings, which is close to what people describe.
Stages take yearsEarly, mid and late are decades apart for many people, and some never reach the last one. The two conditions present from birth do not move along a track at all.
For the detail, go to the conditionGenes, inheritance, what to expect and what is in trials live on each condition's page in the disease database.
In their own wordsFor what each condition is like from the inside, with patients' own descriptions and sources, read the ten "What does it look like?" articles.

Medical Disclaimer

These views are educational approximations. They are not a diagnosis and not a prediction of anyone's vision. Talk with your retina specialist about what your condition means for you.

Sources

National Eye Institute, Retinitis Pigmentosa (loss of night vision as the most common early symptom; loss of side vision). https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-conditions-and-diseases/retinitis-pigmentosa
MedlinePlus Genetics: Usher syndrome; Stargardt macular degeneration; Choroideremia; Cone-rod dystrophy; Achromatopsia; Best vitelliform macular dystrophy; Leber congenital amaurosis. https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/
U.S. Social Security Administration, statutory blindness: central visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with correction, or a visual field 20 degrees or less at its widest diameter (the "mid" retinitis pigmentosa view is drawn at about 20 degrees). https://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/2.00-SpecialSensesandSpeech-Adult.htm
Zur D, Ullman S. Filling-in of retinal scotomas. Vision Research 2003;43:971–982; and Pratt JD, Ohara JM, Woo SY, Bedell HE. Fixation locus in patients with bilateral central scotomas for targets that perceptually fill in. Optometry and Vision Science 2014;91(3):312–321 (why a blind spot is filled with its surroundings rather than seen as black). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4535931/
How our vision simulations were built: the research basis and rendering conventions behind every frame. Read the methodology