Besides providing a uniform description of circles, ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas, conic sections can also be understood as a natural model of the geometry of perspective in the case where the scene being viewed consists of a circle, or more generally an ellipse. The viewer is typically a camera or the human eye. In the simplest case the viewer's lens is just a pinhole; the role of more complex lenses is merely to gather far more light while retaining as far as possible the simple pinhole geometry in which all rays of light from the scene pass through a single point. Once through the lens, the rays then spread out again, in air in the case of a camera, in the vitreous humor in the case of the eye, eventually distributing themselves over the film, imaging device, or retina, all of which come under the heading of image plane. The lens plane is a plane parallel to the image plane at the lens; all rays pass through a single point on the lens plane, namely the lens itself.
When the circle directly faces the viewer, the viewer's lens is on-axis, meaning on the line normal to the circle through its center (think of the axle of a wheel). The rays of light from the circle through the lens to the image plane then form a cone with circular cross section whose apex is the lens. The image plane concretely realizes the abstract cutting plane in the conic section model.
When in addition the viewer directly faces the circle, the circle is rendered faithfully on the image plane without perspective distortion, namely as a scaled-down circle. When the viewer turns attention or gaze away from the center of the circle the image plane then cuts the cone in an ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola depending on how far the viewer turns, corresponding exactly to what happens when the surface cutting the cone to form a conic section is rotated.
A parabola arises when the lens plane is tangent to (touches) the circle. A viewer with perfect 180-degree wide-angle vision will see the whole parabola; in practice this is impossible and only a finite portion of the parabola is captured on the film or retina.
When the viewer turns further so that the lens plane cuts the circle in two points, the shape on the image plane becomes that of a hyperbola. The viewer still sees only a finite curve, namely a portion of one branch of the hyperbola, and is unable to see the second branch at all, which corresponds to the portion of the circle behind the viewer, more precisely, on the same side of the lens plane as the viewer. In practice the finite extent of the image plane makes it impossible to see any portion of the circle near where it is cut by the lens plane. Further back however one could imagine rays from the portion of the circle well behind the viewer passing through the lens, were the viewer transparent. In this case the rays would pass through the image plane before the lens, yet another impracticality ensuring that no portion of the second branch could possibly be visible.
The tangents to the circle where it is cut by the lens plane constitute the asymptotes of the hyperbola. Were these tangents to be drawn in ink in the plane of the circle, the eye would perceive them as asymptotes to the visible branch. Whether they converge in front of or behind the viewer depends on whether the lens plane is in front of or behind the center of the circle respectively.
If the circle is drawn on the ground and the viewer gradually transfers gaze from straight down at the circle up towards the horizon, the lens plane eventually cuts the circle producing first a parabola then a hyperbola on the image plane. As the gaze continues to rise the asymptotes of the hyperbola, if realized concretely, appear coming in from left and right, swinging towards each other and converging at the horizon when the gaze is horizontal. Further elevation of the gaze into the sky then brings the point of convergence of the asymptotes towards the viewer.
By the same principle with which the back of the circle appears on the image plane were all the physical obstacles to its projection to be overcome, the portion of the two tangents behind the viewer appear on the image plane as an extension of the visible portion of the tangents in front of the viewer. Like the second branch this extension materializes in the sky rather than on the ground, with the horizon marking the boundary between the physically visible (scene in front) and invisible (scene behind), and the visible and invisible parts of the tangents combining in a single X shape. As the gaze is raised and lowered about the horizon, the X shape moves oppositely, lowering as the gaze is raised and vice versa but always with the visible portion being on the ground and stopping at the horizon, with the center of the X being on the horizon when the gaze is horizontal.
All of the above was for the case when the circle faces the viewer, with only the viewer's gaze varying. When the circle starts to face away from the viewer the viewer's lens is no longer on-axis. In this case the cross section of the cone is no longer a circle but an ellipse (never a parabola or hyperbola). However the principle of conic sections does not depend on the cross section of the cone being circular, and applies without modification to the case of eccentric cones.
It is not difficult to see that even in the off-axis case a circle can appear circular, namely when the image plane (and hence lens plane) is parallel to the plane of the circle. That is, to see a circle as a circle when viewing it obliquely, look not at the circle itself but at the plane in which it lies. From this it can be seen that when viewing a plane filled with many circles, all of them will appear circular simultaneously when the plane is looked at directly.
A common misperception about the hyperbola is that it is a mathematical curve rarely if ever encountered in daily life. The reality is that one sees a hyperbola whenever catching sight of portion of a circle cut by one's lens plane (and a parabola when the lens plane is tangent to, i.e. just touches, the circle). The inability to see very much of the arms of the visible branch, combined with the complete absence of the second branch, makes it virtually impossible for the human visual system to recognize the connection with hyperbolas such as y = 1/x where both branches are on display simultaneously.
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