chemoleo
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3-Dimensional Vision- the 'Magic Eye Effect' (Pictures!)
Here's something I meant to test for a long time - and finally got round to doing it. Basically, in science journals, we often display molecular
structures as a stereodiagram, so that the structure can be seen in 3 dimensions.
I found out that the object (the structure, whatever) is rotated 3 degrees back and forth from the viewpoint, which is the camera.
So, two pictures are taken, one where the object is at - 3 deg, the other at +3 deg, where 0 deg is the line perpendicular to the view line of the
camera. I hope that sort of makes sense.
For those who don't know what to do to see the 3 D effect- look at the images, and relax your eyes, as if you are looking through the monitor.
Similar to when you are looking at someone, but really looking through them. This means the focus of your eyes is behind the monitor plane. You should
see four images, 2 for each eye (as each picture contains two images). NOw, try to get the two centre images *together*, so that they overlap. You
will then see THREE images. The center one is the important one. Try to focus on it. Suddenly three dimensions pop out. It should be noted that some
take a while to learn how to focus. So patience is on order!
IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE DOING IT MOVE AT LEAST A METER OR TWO AWAY!
Other than that, enjoy! Those are objects that were lying around at my place. I am sure some people have brilliant ideas of what to photograph, so let
me know!
I think the apples are quite impressive, note how nicely round they are!
This I think is probably the most impressive 3 D image...
A bit of CuSO4...
Also quite cool how the fingers are so clearly in front of the palm
The top of the orange pen on the left side, does it point away from the viewer or towards you?
The contents of this very snail I had to eat...
This can also be done with a real-time videocamera! Just today I found out a friend did this, he set two vid cams onto a wooden frame, the distance
about 7 cm (same as the distance betw. two eyes). Then, he'd align the angle of each camera to the viewing object, and start simultaneous recordings.
We then sat down to watch a little video, all in three dimensions!
However... one limit is of course the size - the furhter apart the images, the more straining it is to the eye. I heard the recommended distance was 8
cm (so 8cm of each picture/video), when at reading distance (~60 cm). The further away, the large the pictures can be seen. So it is possible to see 3
D videos on two whole computer screens placed next to each other, once one sits far away.
This means of course, that chemistry experiments can also be filmed in 3 D, providing one has a 2nd vid camera! Now that would be neat!
[Edited on 12-3-2006 by chemoleo]
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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12AX7
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Doesn't work, at least with my monitor. If I could run a higher resolution I could fit the width of those images between my eyes, but it's just too
far. I can easily cross my eyes that far, but then the depth is reversed.
Incidentially, on the hand, what's up with the shine on the side of the palm? It's normal on the left picture but has gray spots on the right.
Tim
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chemoleo
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Oh it does work. You can't be too far away from the image, you can only be too close. So, move yourself away, 2 meters, and get the three images by
letting your eyes relax, then focus.
Once you are practised you can do it from 50 cm away, as I am doing right now.
The 'shine' is a copying problem of paintshop pro, i didnt bother to fix it. It doesn't affect the 3d effect though.
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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12AX7
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Well, considering my eyes are almost perfectly straight forward, or even divergent, to get those images to line up, distance isn't going to make a
damn bit of difference.
Tim
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chemoleo
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The POINT is that the greater the distance, the lesser the angle between the two object pictures in your vision, thus the less your strain on the eyes
- after all you are focussing on an object that should be, at that focal length, out of focus.
Hence, it is virtually impossible to get three images (rather than 4) when you move REALLY close (your eyes just aren't used to move this much in an
un-hardwired fashion). The further away, the less relaxing and refocussing your eyes need to do. Thus, try it with a good 2 meters away from the
screen. Alternatively, download the images and resize them to a smaller size, and try again.
Now, before you post again, THINK about it please. I am not making it up, it works perfectly fine, and no, your eyes aren't dysfunctional or of
superhuman grade. Anyone can do it, provided you know what to do. And I've just explained how....
[Edited on 12-3-2006 by chemoleo]
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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BromicAcid
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I don't think it has to do with monitor quality at all. The dark picture above the wine glass works fine for me. I end up with a 3D black spot.
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12AX7
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What are you going on about? The problem is simple: the images are too large, or display too large on my monitor, for my eyes to meet them. Resizing
will certainly fix this but for each one? At best an inconvienience.
I don't think you understand the geometry I am getting at. The human eyes are not used to a positive angle: to focus on anything nearby, the eyes
angle towards each other. To focus on infinity, the center of vision of each eye together make a pair of parallel lines. The (shortest,
perpendicular) distance between these lines is always equal to the distance between the eyes. If the eyes cannot make a diverging angle, a
stereograph then must have center-to-center distance shorter than this maximum, period.
I don't know if or how you think that I have a physical problem; my vision is quite good (20/15), and I assure you these visual tricks aren't
difficult to me. I AM thinking, and if you'll take a second look, I had made short, concise posts in this thread, typical of considering my point and
making it quickly. (Of course now you have forced me to be very precise and hence am typing a longer, more detailed post here.)
I can almost make the images merge, but my eyes fall short about 5 pixels. The range difference is too extreme to focus.
Tim
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chemoleo
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| Quote: | | he problem is simple: the images are too large, or display too large on my monitor, for my eyes to meet them |
And THAT's why you have to move away a bit further, because the unnatural angle decreases. This has PRECISELY the same effect as resizing.... You
essentially answer your own question/problem....
Believe me. Most people who had trouble with stereodiagrams ressolved it by moving further away, as personally witnessed. ..
[Edited on 12-3-2006 by chemoleo]
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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Chris The Great
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For someone who hasn't seen that before, that is awesome 
I love the ones with the beaker and the pens, it is the most 3D looking of all of them, since the pens come out towards you and also point away.
Thanks for sharing this with us Chemoleo!
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neutrino
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I personally find the hand one most interesting. I never thought such a simple technique could produce so much depth. The awesome power of the human
mind in action.
A tip for those of you who take a while to get the 3D effects: get the first one and scroll down. All the pictures are of the same width, so they all
'focus' at once.
I personally find it a little difficult to keep my eyes lined up because the pictures lack a definitive spot that can be lined up. When you are
adjusting your eyes, you don't quite know where to stop because its hard to find which spots on one picture correspond to what on the other. Are
legends ever employed for this purpose?
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MadHatter
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3-D
It does work ! IIRC, motion pictures that employ a 3-D technique use something
similar. One camera is filming 3 degrees to the left or right of the main camera. The 3-D
glasses pick this up and work very nicely.
From opening of NCIS New Orleans - It goes a BOOM ! BOOM ! BOOM ! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !
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Flip
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This is amazing. It's like there really is an apple sitting in front of my monitor. That's really cool, it looks real.
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garage chemist
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Hmm, I can only do it the wrong way... I focus my eyes on a point that is closer to my eyes than the monitor. That way the two pictures overlap and I
see it in 3D, but inversed, e.g. the apple looks hollow and not rounded.
Guess I need to practice... I know how it's supposed wo work, and I actually was able to do it several years ago when I had a book containing a lot of
similar images. It was actually titled "Das magische Auge" ("The magic eye")!
EDIT: Now I see it! The key is patience. It took me more than a minute to get the images to overlap the first time, but then it was very nice.
Distance helps (about 80cm are good), but not that much. It is much more important to take some time and try to do it. Then it will be easy even at
40cm.
Let's post some 3D molecules! Is there a program that can create those?
[Edited on 12-3-2006 by garage chemist]
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chemoleo
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@Neutrino - yes, I used to have the same problem, particularly with the original magic eye images - where you have this computer-generated pattern,
and where you can't even see the way it ought to overlap. Usually I drew 2 points on it, which corresponded to the distance as with the distance betw.
the two apples. That helped me to get the focus, and that way you can see those magic eye images right away.
Similarly, with i.e. the apple, just take the stem, and use that as your convergence point. Should work.
3 D structures - well there are a numbe of programs, have a look in the molecular structure viewing thread.. I am not sure whether small molecules can be loaded up however. I am sure *some* programs do that though.
The structure below is a little protein called Mdm2, displaying a couple of amino acid residues....this was generated with SwissPdb Viewer.
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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