AbstractThe past few years have been an exciting period in the field of the structure of retinal proteins, especially the visual pigments. A significant achievement is the 9 Å projection map of bovine rhodopsin. This not only provides knowledge of the three‐dimensional structure of visual pigments, but also establishes a more reliable basis for the structural modeling of all the G‐protein‐coupled receptors. The modeling of such three‐dimensional structures will eventually lead to a better understanding of the function of visual pigments and other G‐protein‐coupled receptors. Our goal in this article is to draw attention to recent developments in the structure of retinal proteins, with special emphasis on visual pigments. By combining a wide range of existing experimental data with the results of theoretical calculations, a new three‐dimensional structure of visual pigments, which differs from the models which have so far been reporte