Magic Eye pictures -

[Cyclonus]

These really need to make a comeback because I miss the smug sense of superiority when people who can't do it try in vain to see the hidden image and eventually walk away muttering about the whole thing being a hoax.

Out of this world.

You toucan the piss?

Batter up!

Rock on.


Which leads us nicely to this: a motherfucking magic eye music video.

If you can't see it, don't worry. It just means you're an inferior breed of human and you should kill yourself.

 

[Kosher Salt]

I can see them, but that video is a bit much really. The random flashing static is causing eye fatigue and it also looks like ass because the video compression algorithm is struggling to deal with compressing what's almost completely random noise.

 

[garakfan69]

These things never work for me.

 

[HeraldofNurgle]

 

[Madam Nekromantik]

These things never work for me.

Same, I've heard that if you have bad eyesight they won't work. Maybe that's why I can never see anything.

 

[garakfan69]

Same, I've heard that if you have bad eyesight they won't work. Maybe that's why I can never see anything.

Damn those ableist magic eye pictures.

 

[Kosher Salt]

I've heard that if you have bad eyesight they won't work. Maybe that's why I can never see anything.

If it's correctable to the point where you can at least read, I have a hard time believing that bad eyesight could be the reason you can't see them. More likely you have one eye that's extremely dominant, or you just can't train your eyes to maintain the correct focal distance when you're effectively focusing on a point way off into the distance instead of on the surface of the screen or page close to you (the cross-eyed method has the opposite effect, i.e. you're basically focusing on a point closer to your nose than the actual surface). When your eyes are adjusted for distant objects, the much closer image is just going to be a blur (and vice versa), so you won't be able to see the pattern.

 

[Nurse Ratchet]

Just keep trying.

Also, the trick is to bring it up close to your face

& then slowly move either away.

 

[LazloChalos]

Feels like a waste of time most of the time, though I do like the design that goes into them.

I tooled around with an image one time because I suspected it was an empty image, what I saw after peeling one really made me appreciate their construction.

I am going to try and demonstrate with the first image of this thread.

Ok, managed to get a rudimentary gif.

The main image is at the center but that is not all, it is flanked to the sides with the same images, each scaling down the further they are from the center.

In addition to that the flanking images are rendered as depth maps in different stages.

 

[Nurse Ratchet]

Same, I've heard that if you have bad eyesight they won't work. Maybe that's why I can never see anything.

Nonono trust me, my vision is absolute dogshit & I can see these without issue. More likely it's along the lines of what @Kosher Salt is saying upthread.

 

[Cyclonus]

If you have two working eyes and you are capable of crossing them then you should be able to do it.

 

[Islamic Creampie]

Can't seem to get the top image, but got the rest.

When I was a kid I had no problem with these, but now as an adult I seem to struggle a bit. They're still really fun though.

Here's a good one from a great band.

 

[MysticMisty]

Same, I've heard that if you have bad eyesight they won't work. Maybe that's why I can never see anything.

I have poor vision with very strong prescription glasses and can see them just fine. It took a long time because fellow kids never told me how to do it, they just expected me to know automatically. It's easier to do it on paper or a phone until you can do it with greater distances. Once you get it you'll know because it'll snap into perfect focus and you can look around the image (and even move it around) without losing it.

 

[Kosher Salt]

I tooled around with an image one time because I suspected it was an empty image, what I saw after peeling one really made me appreciate their construction.

I am going to try and demonstrate with the first image of this thread.

Ok, managed to get a rudimentary gif.

The main image is at the center but that is not all, it is flanked to the sides with the same images, each scaling down the further they are from the center.

In addition to that the flanking images are rendered as depth maps in different stages.

That's sort of an artifact. There's only one main image, really, but the distortions that it causes in the underlying pattern will repeat each time the pattern repeats, and that's what causes the peripheral images that you're seeing.

 

[Madam Nekromantik]

and you are capable of crossing them

That's probably why I can't see them. I haven't been able to cross one of my eyes due to a surgery I had on it as a kid.

 

[Cyclonus]

It took a while, but I finally found a magic eye goatse.

 

[Kosher Salt]

That's sort of an artifact. There's only one main image, really, but the distortions that it causes in the underlying pattern will repeat each time the pattern repeats, and that's what causes the peripheral images that you're seeing.

I'll try to illustrate this better. Here's two identical patterns, side by side. If you let your eyes diverge, as though viewing a distant object, you'll see double, and you should be able to get the left and right sides of the double image to overlap perfectly. There's no depth information, though; they're identical copies of the same pattern:

But now watch what happens if I grab some pixels in one of the images and move them over. Note that all I've done is selected a circle, copied it, pasted it, and moved it over a little; it seems to pop out (if you cross your eyes, the depth will be reversed):

I don't have to edit just the one side; it could be either, or a combination of both. This is effectively the same stereogram:

Simply repeating the (changed) pattern in either direction is not sufficient to add more raised dots, however. There's only one raised dot in this image; the other distortions are flat because they're identical to the pattern to their immediate left/right:

To add more stuff, more distortions have to be created. Here, there's a raised square on either side of the raised circle:

More complex images just require more complex distortions in the underlying pattern.

 

[Diesel Boogaloo]

I've never could see those as a kid, but I learned how to few years ago. It's not a great method, but it works half the time, which is enough for me.
First, I'll stress that I don't have any physical magic eye pictures and all what I'm going to say is about computer screens.
I usually try to minimize the amount of random distractions around the picture, I sometimes open it in a new window, so it has a uniform gray background around it. If it's too small, I zoom it in by a nice ratio (150%, 200%, 300%). Borders, like in the one @Islamic Creampie posted, distract me too much.
I start by pushing my eyeglasses, so that their rims obstruct my vision less. Then I move my head closer to the screen until it's too close to focus my eyes on and I blink few times. I wait for my eyes to relax and focus past the screen, until I notice any semblance of depth. I then move away until the image starts getting a little sharp, but not any further. If it's getting too sharp, I slowly move back forward. Then I wait, staring exactly forward, until the shape becomes clear in the middle of the picture, and then I slowly look around, using only my eyeballs or moving the head parallel to the screen to see the rest. More and more elements of the image start getting noticed now and I can finally see the whole picture.
It also depends a lot on what kind of pattern the image has, I prefer the ones that are less multicolored and have a limited palette.

 

[Cyclonus]

Of course, after all that I'm:

 

[Dysnomia]

Same, I've heard that if you have bad eyesight they won't work. Maybe that's why I can never see anything.

I'm horribly nearsighted and they give me a headache. If I keep staring at these things I'm gonna get a migraine.