Angle-averaged PDF of the column density for cylinders with a mean inclination angle of 0° (left-hand figure) and 60° (right-hand figure). The cosine of the inclination angle is assumed to be Gaussian distributed. The curves are labeled with the assumed standard deviation σ_μ. The cylinders are pressurized by a medium with p_ext/k = 2 × 10⁴ K cm^-3 and have an overpressure p_c/p_ext = 14.04. The intrinsic PDF for the limit σ_μ → 0 is shown as dotted curves. The gray vertical lines mark the highest extinction values of a cylinder seen under the assumed inclination angle and the position of the peak of the averaged PDF of randomly oriented cylinders. The thick curves are the PDFs for randomly distributed cylinders.