Let's post awesome optical illusions

[DeeBye]

These are probably the best optical illusions I have ever seen. Each one of them blew my friggin' mind when I first saw them.

This one prompted me to e-mail the creator and give him a "nicely done" email. He replied and said thanks :) He is a professor at MIT and seems like a nice guy.



This one is along the same lines as the above. The central section of the intersecting crosses are the exact same colour.



Stare at the centre cross for a moment, and the moving dot will eventually turn green. Stare at it for a moment longer, and all of the dots will disappear except for the moving green dot.



This is not an animated GIF.

[FenrisWulf]

Stare at the centre cross for a moment, and the moving dot will eventually turn green.  Stare at it for a moment longer, and all of the dots will disappear except for the moving green dot.

I cleaned this up a bit. The flickers were annoying me.



Also, you can get a 3D effect without using glasses by flipping back and forth between the two views that would usually be overlaid in red&blue 3D images. Check it out!

[NiteFox]

That's my new wallpaper now. If I don't give three other people in this office a headache, I'm coming for you Dee.

[Taem]

That's my new wallpaper now.  If I don't give three other people in this office a headache, I'm coming for you Dee.
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LOL, before I even read this I thought outloud that I was going to make that picture my wallpaper too!

[Rinnhart]

Stare at the dot.

[Refrigerator]

That one with the moving dot is amazing. I can't even begin to imagine how that could work. I notice that if you move your head in a little bit once the dots have disappeared, you can see a slightly smaller green ring of dots for a few seconds.

Anyone know why this one works how it does? :huh:

EDIT: And the last one that Rinnhart just posted. Why do my eyes do this to me??? WHY???

[Kylearan]

Hi,

That one with the moving dot is amazing. [...] Anyone know why this one works how it does?

Your eyes have three different types of receptor cells for different colors, BV (blue-violet, ~460 nanometers), GY (green-yellow, ~530 nm), and YR (yellow-red, ~570 nm). Your perception of colors is made out of these three components (it's a bit more complicated in reality, but it suffices to explain this optical illusion).

Now if you stare at the illusion for some time, the BV receptor cells get "overloaded" and exhausted because the color is especially chosen to stimulate them (and only them), and so that color component slowly fades away.

If you move your head/your eyes, the image of the violet dots "move" to other BV receptor cells in the eye which are still fresh, so the dots "reappear".

Another well-known optical trick is to stare at a red shape on a white background for some time, then look at a white background only. Your eyes will then "see" the same shape in the complementary color for some time because the YR cells are exhausted.

-Kylearan

[jahcs]

Hi,
Your eyes have three different types of receptor cells for different colors, BV (blue-violet, ~460 nanometers), GY (green-yellow, ~530 nm), and YR (yellow-red, ~570 nm). Your perception of colors is made out of these three components (it's a bit more complicated in reality, but it suffices to explain this optical illusion).

Now if you stare at the illusion for some time, the BV receptor cells get "overloaded" and exhausted because the color is especially chosen to stimulate them (and only them), and so that color component slowly fades away.

If you move your head/your eyes, the image of the violet dots "move" to other BV receptor cells in the eye which are still fresh, so the dots "reappear".

Another well-known optical trick is to stare at a red shape on a white background for some time, then look at a white background only. Your eyes will then "see" the same shape in the complementary color for some time because the YR cells are exhausted.

-Kylearan
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We are taught the same principles in the Army on sentry duty and when "point shooting." If you look directly at something, especially at night, it can have a tendency to disapear. It is also an effective tactic when driving.

EDIT: Oh and does anyone notice that once you get below a certain level of illumination you only see in black and white? City dwellers may have more trouble with this one ;)

[ima_nerd]

Oh and does anyone notice that once you get below a certain level of illumination you only see in black and white? City dwellers may have more trouble with this one

That can be seen when getting dressed in the dark and coming out wearing black pants and navy blue socks.

[Minionman]

EDIT:  Oh and does anyone notice that once you get below a certain level of illumination you only see in black and white?  City dwellers may have more trouble with this one ;)
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Notice it a lot when going to sleep with the lights off. Everything looks blackish with a slight blue mixed in.

[jahcs]

Notice it a lot when going to sleep with the lights off.  Everything looks  blackish with a slight blue mixed in.
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The best way to use this phenomenon is to go camping. Put the fire out on a night with very little moonlight, take a few steps into the woods, and voila! You are in an old black and white B grade horror movie. :)

[Necrotising(BD)]

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html :)

[Copadope]

If you look directly at something, especially at night, it can have a tendency to disapear.  It is also an effective tactic when driving.

EDIT:  Oh and does anyone notice that once you get below a certain level of illumination you only see in black and white?
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Quick and Dirty Lesson in Sense and Perception:

This also has to do with the different light receptors in your eyes. There are two main types of receptors: rods and cones. Rods collect information only in black and white, and are much more effective in very dim environments. Cones come in three different flavors (as explained in Kylearan's post) and collect color information.

Inside your eyes, the very center of your field of view is covered almost exclusively with cones because they deliver the most detailed information about what you're seeing. But they don't work well when there is very little light. That's why at night if you're trying to see a very dim light such as a star, you're able to see it better by looking "next" to it rather than directly at it. When the light from that star hits your eye outside of the center of your field of view, it hits more rod receptors which will pick it up better.

[Taem]

These are probably the best optical illusions I have ever seen.  Each one of them blew my friggin' mind when I first saw them.
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Here's an interesting link you might enjoy:

http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~desa/87/lec4out.pdf

In addition, has anyone here ever heard of or personally experienced Stereo-Vision when applied to video games? It is a truly incredible experience I'd highly recommend to anyone making everything in your games completely 3D, as if you are actually there!

http://www.edimensional.com/category_info.php?cPath=21

[Munkay]

Here's an interesting link you might enjoy:

http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~desa/87/lec4out.pdf

In addition, has anyone here ever heard of or personally experienced Stereo-Vision when applied to video games? It is a truly incredible experience I'd highly recommend to anyone making everything in your games completely 3D, as if you are actually there!

http://www.edimensional.com/category_info.php?cPath=21
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I've never though of trying magic eye's on the computer, much less on the computer with contacts in. It was definitely fun, though my eyes burn much worse from the 5 minutes spent looking at the PDF than from any Diablo II playing binge I've had.

Strike that. It's close to a long DII session :P

Thanks Meat,

Munk