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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  06:17:45  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Here's a couple of optical illusions that my daughter linked me to. Both are of types I've never seen before, nor imagined could exist. They play some funny brain tricks.


Dr Angry and Mr Calm
.
Closeup, the face on the left is angry, while
the one on the right is calm. Now, slowly back
up. The expressions will switch for most folks.


Rotating Snakes
.
Despite their appearances, the image of these "snakes"
is NOT an animation. It's all in our heads. They are
sneaky snakes, though. When you look right at a coil, it
freezes, while the other parts writhe. 60's flashback city.
(The full-sized image at the link just above works best!)



Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.

Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/17/2007 05:23:55

pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  06:34:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Hmmm, the faces did not switch for me. On the rotating snakes, if I stare at one, it stops, and then the other slow down and stop a second later. Weird!

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
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Vegeta
Skeptic Friend

United Kingdom
238 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  11:32:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Vegeta a Private Message  Reply with Quote
the faces work for me. you gotta move about 7 feet back though

What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a pink shirt before?

"I was asked if I would do a similar sketch but focusing on the shortcomings of Islam rather than Christianity. I said, 'No, no I wouldn't. I may be an atheist but I'm not stupid.'" - Steward Lee
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular

Australia
800 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  17:29:24   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit JohnOAS's Homepage Send JohnOAS a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Regarding the faces, that's an interesting one.

My monitor is too large for me to get back far enough in my home office. Standing in the hall (and at about 50 degrees from normal) worked to a limited extent.

Instead, try just viewing the image in your favourite program and resizing it on the fly. For me the transition starts kicking in at around 35%, and is complete at around 30% of original size. This may vary a little depending on the algorithm you image viewer software uses.

It would seem that up close, the finer detail in the image is dominant, as you go back (or shrink the image), this detail is lost, and larger scale features that were previously blurry become dominant.

John's just this guy, you know.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  18:58:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by JohnOAS

It would seem that up close, the finer detail in the image is dominant, as you go back (or shrink the image), this detail is lost, and larger scale features that were previously blurry become dominant.
That's exactly what's happening, from what I recall of the discussion of that illusion in some magazine or other, about a year ago. May have been SciAm.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  22:15:19   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.

quote:
Originally posted by JohnOAS

It would seem that up close, the finer detail in the image is dominant, as you go back (or shrink the image), this detail is lost, and larger scale features that were previously blurry become dominant.
That's exactly what's happening, from what I recall of the discussion of that illusion in some magazine or other, about a year ago. May have been SciAm.



Perhaps it was at the SFN?

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 03/10/2007 :  22:56:56   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Nah, I remember quite clearly leaning a magazine up against my monitor at work and stepping back from it to see the illusion, and then getting my coworkers to do the same.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Randy
SFN Regular

USA
1990 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2007 :  06:59:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Randy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Here's a couple of bizarre animations.
First one is a looping animation based on only two images. The body is slightly shifted on the second frame along with the back ground. Then both frames are converted to negatives and added to the loop, giving a total of four separate images. End result?....nausea, for me; possible seizure/blackouts for others.





This utterly weird avatar from somewheres has 22 frames. Someone went to a fair amount of time to create this strange one...

"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."

"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2007 :  07:47:08   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Just what I needed; yet more illogical and vicious assaults upon my already dope & booze-damaged thought processes! Thanks a whole freakin' lot!!

Fascinating in an eye-strained sort of way, though... They all worked (too well) for me. Here's another neat one, an animation. Vary the speed and watch the snake fuel march and scatter.....




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Chippewa
SFN Regular

USA
1496 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2007 :  11:32:15   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Chippewa's Homepage Send Chippewa a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Let's build one of these:

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Aerik
New Member

USA
18 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2007 :  19:34:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Aerik's Homepage Send Aerik a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Can somebody tell me what's creepy about any of these illusions?
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2007 :  20:52:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Aerik

Can somebody tell me what's creepy about any of these illusions?

What I find "creepy" about them is how they demonstrate the kind of evolutionary neural filters through which our senses operate. What we see is not even the limited photonic image that our retinas collect, but a predigested, "number-crunched" interpretation applied by our brains at a low level, and then presented to what we experience as our "consciousness" in interpreted form. I would prefer a simple situation where what I see is what there is, but that is not entirely the case. This illustrates the need for critical thinking to know what is really "real."

As a skeptic, it really bothers me that those "snakes" seem to writhe. I would prefer that I did not see them so. I (my consciousness) would prefer to do my own interpretation.




Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/17/2007 20:55:59
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Randy
SFN Regular

USA
1990 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2007 :  21:21:24   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Randy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Count the black dots. Hard to do? That's because there aren't any...



Move this page up and down to view optical wacky effect....

"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."

"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 03/18/2007 :  01:06:00   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message  Reply with Quote
So Randy, is the flashing floating man on some sort of random blink time for each frame?


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Chippewa
SFN Regular

USA
1496 Posts

Posted - 03/18/2007 :  02:06:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Chippewa's Homepage Send Chippewa a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal

So Randy, is the flashing floating man on some sort of random blink time for each frame?

In addition to what what Randy might say, if you place your mouse arrow on the man's finger tips and look at the arrow, or on any of the stars in the galaxy, you'll notice that the images in fact are not moving.
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Randy
SFN Regular

USA
1990 Posts

Posted - 03/18/2007 :  06:33:43   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Randy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal

So Randy, is the flashing floating man on some sort of random blink time for each frame?





Strange, the original animation, when opened up in the gif animation software, doesn't register any time delay per frame (what's up with that?!). It appears, though, to be apx. 1/10 of a second delay per frame.

"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."

"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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