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👁 How Bees See the World

See a meadow the way a honey bee does: hexagonal compound-eye mosaic vision, hidden ultraviolet nectar-guide patterns on flowers, and the polarised-light sky compass bees use to navigate.

Entomology & Insect Behaviour3DAdvanced60 FPS

A flower meadow rendered through a hexagonal ommatidia mosaic shader, revealing the ultraviolet nectar-guide patterns hidden on flower petals and the polarised-light bands bees read across the sky.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Compound-eye vision is simulated as a two-pass render: the scene is drawn to a buffer, then re-sampled through a hexagonal tiling shader so each hexagon shows one averaged "ommatidium" — coarser than human vision but built for speed, not detail.

🎮 How to Use

Switch between human and bee vision modes, shrink or enlarge the ommatidia to change visual acuity, move the sun to see the sky's polarisation bands rotate, and toggle the UV nectar guides and polarisation overlay independently.

💡 Did You Know?

Bees process visual flicker at roughly 200Hz — over three times a human's ~60Hz — which is why they can track fast wingbeats and flowers whipping past in the wind that would blur into a smear for us.

⚙ Under the hood

A Three.js flower meadow rendered through a two-pass hexagonal ommatidia mosaic shader, revealing ultraviolet nectar-guide bullseyes on flowers and a polarised-light sky-compass pattern that bees use to navigate, all switchable between human and bee vision modes.

bee visioncompound eyesultravioletpolarised lightinsect sensory biologybee navigation

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install