This is known as stereopsis - or 3D vision - and scientists have been studying it for almost two centuries.Īt first, researchers thought you'd have to overlap two separate images to create this effect - in fact, 3D glasses and VR headsets still use this technique - but what's so cool about Magic Eye puzzles is they can achieve the same effect using a single image. Interestingly, it's the differences in the two original pictures that help your brain achieve the best approximation of what you're looking at - those differences add depth to the resulting image you perceive. It's your brain's job to immediately process these and combine them into two, so you don't walk around with constant double vision. They were developed as part of an investigation into human perception - specifically, the mechanisms involved in taking the two separate images created by your two eyes, and combining them into one.Īs the video explains, pupils in human eyes are typically around 66 millimetres apart, which means each eye gets a slightly different picture of whatever they're focussing on. This one really creeps me out, but it is so well done #Halloween #MagicEye #Illusion /hMmjT7twUdĭespite the fact the Magic Eye puzzles were all the rage in the '90s (of course we had them Blu-Tacked to our bedroom walls), the idea had been around for a decades before then. If you're successful, a three-dimensional image should appear in the patterned stereogram. Some people will just naturally be able to do this without even realising what their eyes are doing, while others will need to use the guides at the top of the page, indicating where they should look. To achieve this, you need to point your eyes at a spot beyond the main image. That means instead of looking directly at an image, you're supposed to 'over diverge' your eyes, as if you're looking right through it. Some stereograms are designed to be viewed cross-eyed, but the ones published in the famous Magic Eye books were designed for divergent viewing. Here’s some of the best from the old school optical nerds of the dial-up Internet age.As the Vox video above explains, Magic Eye puzzles are stereograms - two-dimensional pictures that can create three-dimensional images, depending on how you look at them. What many of you may not know is that whilst the mainstream Magic Eye calendars of yesteryear featured pretty ponies and aqua dolphins jumping from its pages, there was a dark seedy underworld of stereograms cropping up.
The rest of you are probably just uncoordinated, or really, really impatient. Some people simply do not possess 3D vision, known as stereopsis-so if your eyes don’t point the same way, or you have a lazy eye, that’s you explained. Yes, there’re instructional videos out there dispensing all kinds of advice, from going crossed eyed to touching your nose on the screen and slowly leaning back-but you can’t fight genetics, humanoid. The truth is, you either see em, or you don’t. Sure, they’re great fun, and an exquisite time-waster, but the biggest kick comes from watching someone who can’t see the 3D image painstakingly try to do so. came out with book loads of these stereograms in the nineties, with the first three North American editions spending a collective 73 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List.