Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Cross-Viewing is SO COOL

If you've never been able to see those migraine-inducing Magic Eye illusions that were all the rage years ago, then you're going to hate this. But if you *can* see them, this is AWESOME.

First, look at these two pictures:

While looking at both photos, cross your eyes. With your eyes crossed, you'll see three photos instead of two. Try to focus on the middle one. It takes a little practice, but when you get it, WOW. 3D!

This technique is called "cross-viewing" and is similar to the old-fashioned stereoscopes you see from Victorian times. The photos are by yowayowa camera woman, aka "the levitating girl." Her photos are gorgeous and oddly mesmerizing even without the 3D affect, so you'll want to see her other work, too. (And thanks to Mary B. for the link!)

Her site doesn't have a search bar to find just the 3D images, but I tracked down a few more for you here, here, and here.

Oh, and if you can't get your eyes to cross properly, Mental Floss just posted 12 animated stereoscopes which give the same general 3D effect without all the eye strain. :)

43 comments:

  1. Of course, I have to be in a coffee shop while I try this (the little girl across from me has furrowed her brow as she stares at me) but those pictures are so cool.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is so cool!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Phooee! I can cross my eyes and see 4 girls, but not 3. The middle 2 get close together, but I just can't make them merge.
    My sister can do it though, and she assures me that it is "neato".

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is, by far, the coolest thing I've seen all day.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yay for immeditaly going cross-eyed when I take my glasses off. Got slight vertigo when I zoomed the pictured up to fill my screen though, the camera trick of "is she jumping towards, or falling away?" made it :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can't see magic eye pictures (or 3D effects in movies), but I can see this... sort of. It's pretty cool!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That's not a schooner, it's a sailboat. :D

    ReplyDelete
  8. Holy Carp! It took a bit to make it work. Every time I tried to focus on the middle picture it would snap back to the original two. But suddenly it worked and was amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love cross-viewing (didn't know that's what it was called)!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love this idea. Someone I follow on deviantArt creates digital art in this vein. Check it out:

    http://artbytheo.deviantart.com/gallery/26814253

    It's pretty mind boggling; I can't figure out how anyone would know how to create this :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love this type of stuff. The illusions the eye can see are just amazing.

    And those outfits the levitating girl wears are way cute!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Arg, so frustrating, I can just about manage to cross my eyes but only when looking at my own nose, so whenever I see the third picture in my peripheral vision and try to look at it I lose it! The stereoscopes are really neat in any case, though I think I'm stil going to keep trying at the cross-viewing!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks for the Mental Floss pictures! I have what my Ophthalmologist likes to call "defective" eyes, so the Magic Eye type stuff (even the old red/blue 3d glasses) have never worked for me...so it was nice to be able to see something similar. Freakin' awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  14. @Carryn: A scooner is a sailboat. ;)

    For those of you having trouble seeing them, try going to the links Jen provided and then try out the smaller "parallel" photos at the bottom of the individual pages. I couldn't get the big one on the Epbot page to work at first (kept seeing four images) but was able to do the smaller ones. When I came back to Epbot after having successfully seen the smaller ones, I could suddenly see the bigger one, too! And now I'm dizzy . . .

    ReplyDelete
  15. Very cool! You should read the mind´s eye by Oliver Sacks.

    ReplyDelete
  16. And I've actually never been able to see those Magic Eye things, but I can see this just fine.

    ReplyDelete
  17. OK, that's really awesome. I never knew my brain could do such amazing things!

    wv: besingly--to line up single file, i.e. "Crucifixion? Yes, one cross each. Arrange yourselves besinly on the left, please."

    ReplyDelete
  18. WOW. My eyes are spinning, but the eyestrain was TOTALLY WORTH IT. It's like Magic Eye for the digital age.

    ReplyDelete
  19. http://www.sticksite.com/stereograms/index.html

    Here's a how-to I found, and it also tells you how to make a viewer if you're having trouble.

    WV: cation - a very fluffy type of atom. "And if you zoom in your electron microscope, you will see the elusive and slinky cation."

    ReplyDelete
  20. Got it! I've done the 3-d stuff before, but not anything like this... very cool. Gonna have to Google it now :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. @Lavender Poet - thanks for that link! Now I want to make a pretty steampunk viewer. 'Course, then I'd also have to make photos for it... Hmmm. [plotting]

    ReplyDelete
  22. I seemed to have trouble with size, I could see the small parallels with ease, but not the larger cross ones. I found that by making the picture smaller (ctrl and -) I could make it work. Then by increasing the size again (ctrl and +) a little at a time my eyes could keep the image in 3-d. Maybe that'll work for someone else.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Amazing & wonderful! Can't wait to check out the links.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Crossing my eyes at my work computer has gotten a few odd looks. Score! :D

    ReplyDelete
  25. Like NatalieX, I can cross my eyes a lot, so I'd see 4. But I eventually managed to just barely cross my eyes and, once my brain latched onto the idea, I could actually focus on the middle of three images, which was pretty wild!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Sweet!

    @ NatalieX, I had the same problem. I got closer to the computer screen, though, and I was able to get 3.

    ReplyDelete
  27. holy cow, how fun is that??? Once the first image clicked into the 3D, I literally scared my cat with the "WHOA!" that came out of my mouth LOL Jen, you are awesome for posting this (and soooo much else)!

    ReplyDelete
  28. So very cool! Thanks for the links - the pics are so awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  29. I'm hearing all the adults from my childhood telling me my eyes will stay permanently crossed if I view these this way.
    Those are cool, but the one you posted is definitely the best of the four.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I think I JUST managed to get it. But I'm not sure.

    I used to be able to do magic eyes, but I have a lazy eye which has gotten progressively lazier, so I can't anymore... which means I have no idea whether or not this worked...

    She pointed in the opposite direction for a second, is that it?

    ReplyDelete
  31. I just spent 15 minutes trying to cross my eyes - AND I CAN'T! What kind of weird eye disorder must I have to be THAT USELESS?!

    ReplyDelete
  32. The staircase one is absolutely wonderful! Like many of your other readers, I never could see the magic eye pictures, but I've always been able to see these.

    I could be remembering incorrectly, but I seem to recall an option on youtube to view things in parallel to make anything you view on there 3D. (Or maybe it was all a bizarre dream....)

    ReplyDelete
  33. I always wanted to take a peak in the houses of people who actually purchased one of the big Magic Eye posters from the mall back in the day. Those kiosks were always super popular and had tons of people crowding around them but 1)They were REALLY expensive 2)There is no way they would look normal in anyones living room. I want to know who the typical buyer of those was.

    ReplyDelete
  34. WOW! How cool is cross-viewing!!! And good luck to Allie. I've been checking her blog everyday, and sad to find no updates. But I look forward to seeing her book one day!

    ReplyDelete
  35. I have a slight strabismus, so I'm a natural parallel viewer (I can view old stereoscopes without a stereoscope), but because of that, I can't cross my eyes to save my life.

    3d pics should be displayed in both formats - not everyone can parallel view, not everyone can cross view.

    PS: I do 3d photography myself, so I know what I'm talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Wow! This is so freaking cool! While I used to have trouble viewing the image in the picture things I had no trouble what so ever seeing the 3D effects with these pictures! I am going to make one of them my desktop so I can stare cross eyed at my computer all day!

    ReplyDelete
  37. My parents asked me if anything was wrong while my face was half an inch from the screen and my eyes were crossed. "No," I assured them, "Everything is perfectly fine."

    ReplyDelete
  38. I tried to do this and all my eyes kept focusing on was my glass of wine by the lap top. maybe if I have a few it will help.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Remember those pictures they used to have at the mall where if you started at it for long enough it would become 3d? (remember malls? Anyone?) I used to have a lot of trouble seeing those. But this one worked for me. Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I got it to work! And I could never do those old magic thingy pictures! Thanks for sharing these, they're so cool!

    ReplyDelete
  41. Very cool. And I was able to get the hang of it pretty quick. I remember those pictures, and it took me forever to get the hang of them. My college room mate had a poster hanging in our place and I remember the day I finally was able to see it, I went crazy. Anyhow, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Anyone who is having trouble--I can do these kinds of things in a snap, but I noticed that it was MUCH harder and caused much more eye strain when I was sitting closer to the computer. So if you sit a little farther back (like lean back in your chair) it might be easier.

    When I was a little girl, my grandma had the coolest wallpaper in the guest bedroom where my sister and I slept, on matching brass rail beds. The wallpaper pattern alternated vertical rows of dots, pine trees and stripes. I would lay there in bed in the morning and stare at the wall paper and first make the trees "pop" out, then make the dots "pop." I knew it was an optical illustion, but never understood why that pattern made it happen--or that it was totally cool and would never happen on any wallpaper ever again. The best grandma wallpaper EVER. I have always wished I could find a sample of that pattern!

    NO WAY. WV: pophy

    as in "the wallpaper was totally pophy and made me totally happy."

    ReplyDelete

Please be respectful when commenting; dissenting opinions are great, but personal attacks or hateful remarks will be removed. Also, including a link? Then here's your html cheat sheet: <a href="LINK ADDRESS">YOUR TEXT</a>