how do they make MAGIC EYE pictures ???

Soldato
Joined
22 Sep 2005
Posts
3,267
Location
Manchester
hey guys,
well another borign day at pre school. ahem i mean college.
and i found my self flicking through a book ful of those magic eye pics... the ones that are just look like a 90's pullover, which you hold to your nosse and move away to see a 3d image.

how the hell are they made, theyve been around for years so cant be THAT hard to make ?
can someone shed some light on them please ?
 
They work due to the way our brain matches up what our left eye and right eye sees to create a whole image.

When you go cross-eyed looking at an image of repeated patterns the image is pushed to the background. However, if something within that image is different from the rest of the pattern, it appears in the foreground.

Moreover, if you lower the interval between where two identical patterns start the higher up that part of the image will seem.

To create these images the best way you need two basic things: Something to use as a repated pattern and a greyscale of the object you wish to show in 3D within the image.

Software looks at the greyscale and depending on the value of a pixel it will adjust the spacing in the pattern.

Here's one I just knocked up myself in PS - I did this manually and not using the greyscale technique:
magicEye.jpg


[It is an arrow pointing right]

Found this too which better explains it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram

SiriusB
 
omg, ive opened a can of worms here lol. im gonna have to read through it all again lol.

so... how did you nock that one up in PS ? in a nut shell?
( btw i cant see it lol ... the arrow that is)

thanks for the uinput guys. im gonna try my best to uinderstand it.
tbh i never expected one reply never mind 3 lol
thanks
Rick
 
Well I can see it :p

Fill layer with white
Open Layer Styles and add a pattern overlay.
Scale pattern to around 20%
Duplicate layer
Open Layer Styles and decrease the scale, in this case about 17%
Make a selection of a shape on the duplicate layer
Inverse the selection and press delete
Deselect
You're done

Jobs a gooden :p

SiriusB
 
It is simple, but I can only get decent results with really basic shapes.

While the basic principle is to have a smaller scale pattern in another pattern there is more to it. I tried originally to do my name but it was barely readable.

There are proggies out there that can generate magic eye's automatically.

SiriusB
 
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