Retro Post – Magic Eye

46 Comments on Retro Post – Magic Eye

1. Once you see it the 3-D remains until you pull your eyes away. Fun and weird stuff.

2. I remember these well, and there’s a classic Seinfeld that features one. I have to admit, it took me a few minutes to get it but I finally did. You have to look a little cross eyed and stare for a while. Not easy, but once it really comes in to view it’s very clear.

3. Fish Day?

   😉

4. Nope. Can’t do it, never could. Due to a childhood eye injury, my right eye vision is just different enough from my left eye that this doesn’t work. What am I supposed to see?

5. The trick is to focus past the image. (ie. the image is 12″ away, focus should be like 13″ or more…the reverse of crossing your eyes. ) Notice repeating blobs in a pic and relax your focus so that 2 blobs (say blob A and blob B, right next to each other) merge into 1. Then keep that image and try not to break your concentration.
   Sometimes the image may not appear till you relax focus so that blob A is on top of blob C, or D, or even E.

   For more information throw cash.

6. Such a great memory involving these! That was the summer my Aunt and I road-tripped to NM and AZ to visit family. My young nephew, then 16, and I got to spend a lot of time together and over the course of weeks I developed his lisp — so weirdly bonding — and taught him how to “see” these. That was also the summer we laughed our hinies off reading Deep Thoughts out loud. So fun! I haven’t seen these in years.

7. Corona — that’s the best instruction I’ve heard. I would have said look at it with an “indifferent” stare, like you’re not really looking at it.

8. This is so cool. Relax, don’t focus…Wow! That’s the grassy knoll. Relax, OMG, so THAT’S who killed Kennedy!

9. seize the day! you just kind of squint a little! 🙂

10. Carpe Diem!

11. I could not get it to work until I put my reading glasses on and got up close to the monitor. Then it popped out at me.
    It definately has that 3D effect. I could pivot my head to the left and right and it seemed like I was looking around the letters.

12. Can’t do it, never could, and you can’t make me. The wifes tried.

13. Hitler invented Magic Eye.

14. i was good at these as a kid –now it’s like looking at a rug very closely and it doesn’t change.

15. I can’t see shit!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsSW9rd322k

16. @Brad
    Try using a PC monitor and not your smart phone.

17. “Lucky Charms” vomit….

18. Corona actually had the best explanation: Notice repeating blobs in a pic and relax your focus so that 2 blobs (say blob A and blob B, right next to each other) merge into 1. Then keep that image and try not to break your concentration.

19. And it does help to get your eyes closer to the monitor. Get close enough so that it naturally starts to go out of focus.

20. I used to do that with a simple pattern real close to my face, like a checkerboard pattern or whatever. (I was prolly in school and so bored out of my mind I just rested my nose on a graph paper with a box pattern.) You’re so close, you relax your vision, look way past the paper until box A matches with box E or whatever, and it would look like I’m looking at a much larger pattern of boxes about 12″ or so from my face.

    And that’s what we learn in Algebra, kids!

21. Oh it does say Carp Diem. Heh.

22. Five shots of Wild Turkey 101 and you’re there. You just may not be seeing the intended image.

23. I can curl my tongue while some people can’t. This I just don’t see no matter how hard I try, but I’m also a little color blind. These things are worse than Rorschach ink blots.

24. RAD! I think after work I’ll see if I can find a site that has a bunch of these and link it here.

25. Ok, shoot. Now I see it. Sorry, it’s not the grassy knoll.

    I did the “put your face close to the monitor” and it popped out.

26. Can’t do it, I only have one eye that focuses clearly, it must be a function of binocular vision.

27. Wildriver, I have the same handicap! I’m triggered by these Magic Eye pictures that I can never see. I’m offended that they even exist! They should be BANNED! (sarcasm off).

28. Jethro
    LOL, I’m working this afternoon so I’m on a PC. Shit I even stood behind the screen. Nada.

29. By the way, if you can see out of both eyes, just focus not on the surface of the picture, but about an inch into it (or so I’ve been told).

30. the enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future, indeed.
    seize the day.

31. Never needed glasses until Magic Eye. Get all cross eyed and stuff. Class action lawsuit. It was in the local paper every day.

32. I see him, I see Waldo.

33. Technicolor Mohammed?
    I got stigmatism, even with glasses.

34. Ever since I started using the Opti-Grab, I’ve had trouble with my focus…

35. Gave me a headache, is that the point?

36. I have a hard time with these, but this time was able to train my eyes well enough to put my hand thru the image and still see it for a long amount of time… before it snapped back and I can’t see shit anymore. sigh.

37. Just love these! Easy as pie for me to see. I must have at least six books of them on my desk. Here’s more if you like ’em:
    http://magiceye.com/

38. Wow! Carpe Diem. I never seen one of these before. It is amazing to me. How in the world did someone figure out how to do that?

39. @ Chickenmom
    Thanks for the link.

    @ iwitness02 , check out Chickenmom’s link – how they work

40. You can’t see it? No, I don’t see it. YOU CAN”T SEE IT!!?!!? No, I still don’t see it. IT’S PLAIN AS DAY, YO oh fuck off. LOL never could see these.

41. Holy crap! It’s Obama’s birth certificate!

42. The viewing principle is the same you would use to view steriographic (or Holmes) cards.

    See thousands of these cards in hundreds of subjects at
    http://www.loc.gov/collections/stereograph-cards/

    When you stare at a stereo card and see three views instead of the two on the card, the center window is you wonderful stereo view. Immerse yourself!

43. It took me about ten seconds, but I used to be an imagery interpreter specialist in the USAF.

44. All I can see is fabric for one of the ‘Old Hag’s’ ™ pantsuit!

    But then, I have plastic lenses inserted into BOTH eyes from cataract surgery….

45. Vietvet bad day!

46. @oolook: I think this computer generated “Magic eye” stuff is different and a lot more complex than the old stereopticon viewers. The latter is based on purely optical principles, whereas the former requires no viewer and depends on how visual images are processed by the human brain. I’ve never known anyone who couldn’t see the 3-D image using a stereo viewer, but I’ve met many who can’t see the “Magic Eye” ones.