3 ms·
I did, for many years. It's one of those things that's hard to explain, and hard to do until you've done it, at which point you understand yourself then how to
by deathanatos 8y ago
I did, for many years. It's one of those things that's hard to explain, and hard to do until you've done it, at which point you understand yourself then how to do it. My father did magic eyes in the newspaper every week when I was a child, and I could never do it. I did start to wonder if he made it all up, but there was an answer key and he was able to figure it out, so there had to be something to it.
Go to the paper: https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/papers/94-HWT-SI-IHW-SIRDS-paper.pdf https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/papers/94-HWT-SI-IHW-SIRDS...
Go to figure 7, "Figure 7. Stereogram showing a hemisphere", on page 24. There are two black dots near the bottom. Cross your eyes: you should now see 4 black dots (2 per eye). Adjust how "crossed" your eyes are such that the "inner" two dots line up, s.t. there are only "three" dots, like `(dot) (two overlapping dots) (dot)`. Now, the hard part: your vision likely blurred when you crossed your eyes; without uncrossing your eyes, and maintaining the position/overlapping of the dots, bring your vision into focus. (This is, IMO, the hard bit.)
Once I've got it into focus, I find my vision "stabilizes": I'm able to look around w/o having to concentrate on keeping my eyes crossed to a particular amount. At this point, I can look up above the dots, and there is a hemisphere in the image, as the figure caption says.
This doesn't have to be done w/ magic eye images, either. Two normal 3d renderings of a landscape side-by-side, where the camera in one rendering slightly horizontally offset from the other, will also work. The idea is the same: overlay the images in your visual field, then bring it into focus.
At least, that's what works for me. According to the sibling comment from chubasco, there's more to it, I guess, but the above is all I know.
- alok99 8y agoThis is the best instruction I've read so far on seeing them. I'm fine with cross-eye stereograms, so lining up to 3 dots was easy. What you described as "stabilizing" your vision once you've focused is what I normally do with cross-eye images to look around. In this case, I can stabilize, but I feel like I'm still seeing the inverse of what I should be seeing. The hemisphere looks like it's carved into the image (with various bands that I assume are shading). The very center looks like a hole was cut out and I can see "behind" the hemisphere. I assume this is supposed to be a highlight and the nearest point to me, but I see it as the furthest.
- deathanatos 8y agoYeah, it's inverted for me too (hemisphere looks carved into the screen). chubasco's comment seems to indicate there's a way of looking at it that goes the other way (and that my technique results in a backwards image), but IDK — the above is the limits of what I know.
- zeta0134 8y agoFirstly: play around with the zoom. I have a much easier time with these at smaller sizes. Second, lean in close to your monitor, so that your eyes are straining a bit to keep the image in focus. Let your eyes "relax" out of focus. At first this might seem the same, but you're getting your eyes to effectively un-cross. Line up the three dots and you should now see the hemisphere in front of the plane, rather than as a cutout.