20 thoughts on “Magic Eye

  • 6/15/2006 at 10:09 am
    Permalink

    Its a guitar standing upright over the number 25.

    Reply
  • 6/15/2006 at 10:09 am
    Permalink

    How the heck did you do that?! Thats pretty neat.

    Reply
  • 6/15/2006 at 11:32 am
    Permalink

    Conspiracy! I have NEVER, not even once, been able to see a single one of these “Magic Eye” images. I don’t think they exist…

    Reply
  • 6/15/2006 at 12:13 pm
    Permalink

    How to see a Magic Eye
    by Mike D.

    There are all sorts of Magic Eye “how to’s” out there. Most of them are terrible. So here’s my attempt to help out Shaun, Jes, and TimBaird’s typical pop-culture reference’d name.

    First we will simulate the magic eye experience

    take your two index fingers and press them up against each other Tip to Tip. then hold your fingers in front of your eyes, and then look at something passed your fingers. Because your eyes are looking from different spots on your face, a mini “hotdog” shaped finger thing will appear between your fingers. Work with this until you can see both ends of the “hot dog” clearly. Our goal with Magic eye is to replicate this substituting the computer screen for your fingers.

    There are two ways you can see a magic eye, by focusing on a point in FRONT of the picture, and focusing your eyes on a point BEYOND the picture.

    The easier of these methods might be focusing in front. If you can cross your eyes, you can see a magic eye.

    Take the drawing I created above. Along the bottom you’ll see some black fractile looking designs. The design repeats. Find two repeating patterns near the center of the drawing (they are about an inch apart), lets call the one on the left A, and the one on the right B.

    looking at the drawing, start to cross your eyes. Either A or B will move slightly depending on which of your eyes is dominant. Keep crossing your eyes (ugh, I know it might hurt. Sit back away from your monitor screen to minimize the pain). When you can get point A to touch point B a number 25 will magically appear right where that fractile is. voila! magic eye!

    While this may be the most elementary way to see the design, it’s not the best.

    The better way is to get your eyes to look past the drawing. It sounds hard, but it’s not as bad as it seems. Especially if there isn’t a wall behind your monitor. Look to the left or right of the monitor and envision yourself looking through the walls at the horizen. Then, turn your head slowly until the magic eye is in front of your field of view. Do not refocus on the image.

    you’ll likely have to play around with this a bit before figuring it out. But once you do, you won’t forget the method. Magic eyes are fun. I’m a big fan.

    Reply
  • 6/15/2006 at 12:17 pm
    Permalink

    I got some words of advice from a guy named Jonathan, his website is here:

    http://web.njit.edu/~jcl7/

    The process basically involves creating a repeating background and then changing slightly the orientation of a select few pixels so that when your eyes look past the drawings those select few pixels match up in your brain and simulate depth.

    Pretty sassy eh?

    Reply
  • 6/15/2006 at 2:17 pm
    Permalink

    Okay, so I’ve tried this before, but I figured, hey, worth another shot, right?

    After a little effort, I was able to see the “hot dog” of finger when trying the initial exercise described above. So, I focused on the wall behind my monitor and shifted my eyes down to the screen, hoping to make the magic eye picture appear.

    4 tries later, I managed to stop refocusing on the image. I shifted my eyes down to the image and kept them focused somewhere behind my monitor.

    Instantly, I became nauseous! And almost fell off the chair!

    I think I’d better just give up and accept the fact that it’s not going to happen.

    Reply
  • 6/15/2006 at 4:00 pm
    Permalink

    Stupid Magic Eye things have haunted me since the fatefull day i met them at the Eastfield Mall in Springfield, MA… that was in the mid 90s and i’ve never seen ANYTHING besides other people making fun of me.

    Reply
  • 6/16/2006 at 8:48 am
    Permalink

    This is the best explanation yet I have seen as to how to do it, but doesn’t quite describe how *I* see them. I’ve tried the “focus in front/behind the image” thing but my tried and tested method is as follows:
    – As Mike D says, find an obvious horizontally repeating pattern in the image.
    – Concentrate on the pattern and cross your eyes so that the pattern doubles, like your finger does if you hold it up in front of you but focus on something further away.
    – Adjust the unfocussedness (i.e. how crossed your eyes are) so that two bits of the doubled-up pattern merge together.
    – Try and keep it like that and then, and this is the crucial bit, focus on the two merged pattern bits as if they were one single pattern bit. At first it can take a lot of concentration to keep your eyes unfocussed the right amount, but once you’ve focussed on the pattern carefully look around the picture and you should be able to see the 3D effect.

    This would be a lot easier to explain with pictures, so I might bust out the MS Paint later tonight.

    Reply
  • 6/16/2006 at 9:27 am
    Permalink

    I tried both suggestions and still have nothing. This is frustrating. I can see most other optical illusions, but these things just make me dizzy.

    Reply
  • 6/16/2006 at 9:34 am
    Permalink

    I can usually see the image within 4 to 7 seconds. I have amazing control over my eyes and my focal powers.

    Reply
  • 6/16/2006 at 1:15 pm
    Permalink

    Keep in some people do have eye focus problems that prevent them from being able to see these. My Mom for instance can only focus close up with one eye, so she has no depth of field or 3-D vision. Maybe the folks that can’t see these are just freaks?

    Reply
  • 6/17/2006 at 12:24 am
    Permalink

    If only Kurt had amazing control over his “ability to eat 17 pies in 1 sitting” powers.

    Reply
  • 6/17/2006 at 1:36 pm
    Permalink

    that’s so neat. here’s another method of seeing it:

    just stare at your reflection in your computer monitor.

    that always works for me.

    Reply
  • 6/19/2006 at 1:45 pm
    Permalink

    Wow, I had no idea you did that by hand. That’s outrageous!! You can download programs that will automatically generate the dots for you, after feeding it a greyscale image (the grey values = depth, how cool is that!)

    Reply
  • 9/27/2018 at 12:46 pm
    Permalink

    I hope your 35th birthday was great! The magic eye guitar is amazing, love it!

    Reply

Leave a Reply to mohan Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *