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Comment by School-Cotton | Hacker News Reader

Tangent: I have spent probably at least a few hours total periodically trying, from when I was a child until now, to see the hidden image in Magic Eye, and have never been able to see absolutely anything at all, despite reading guides on how to do it, etc.

Does anyone else have this experience? Is there something physically different about my eyes or brain compared to people who can see them?

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I did, for many years. It's one of those things that's hard to explain, and hard to do until you've done it, at which point you understand yourself then how to do it. My father did magic eyes in the newspaper every week when I was a child, and I could never do it. I did start to wonder if he made it all up, but there was an answer key and he was able to figure it out, so there had to be something to it.

Go to the paper: https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/papers/94-HWT-SI-IHW-SIRDS...

Go to figure 7, "Figure 7. Stereogram showing a hemisphere", on page 24. There are two black dots near the bottom. Cross your eyes: you should now see 4 black dots (2 per eye). Adjust how "crossed" your eyes are such that the "inner" two dots line up, s.t. there are only "three" dots, like `(dot) (two overlapping dots) (dot)`. Now, the hard part: your vision likely blurred when you crossed your eyes; without uncrossing your eyes, and maintaining the position/overlapping of the dots, bring your vision into focus. (This is, IMO, the hard bit.)

Once I've got it into focus, I find my vision "stabilizes": I'm able to look around w/o having to concentrate on keeping my eyes crossed to a particular amount. At this point, I can look up above the dots, and there is a hemisphere in the image, as the figure caption says.

This doesn't have to be done w/ magic eye images, either. Two normal 3d renderings of a landscape side-by-side, where the camera in one rendering slightly horizontally offset from the other, will also work. The idea is the same: overlay the images in your visual field, then bring it into focus.

At least, that's what works for me. According to the sibling comment from chubasco, there's more to it, I guess, but the above is all I know.

This is the best instruction I've read so far on seeing them. I'm fine with cross-eye stereograms, so lining up to 3 dots was easy. What you described as "stabilizing" your vision once you've focused is what I normally do with cross-eye images to look around.

In this case, I can stabilize, but I feel like I'm still seeing the inverse of what I should be seeing. The hemisphere looks like it's carved into the image (with various bands that I assume are shading). The very center looks like a hole was cut out and I can see "behind" the hemisphere. I assume this is supposed to be a highlight and the nearest point to me, but I see it as the furthest.

Yeah, it's inverted for me too (hemisphere looks carved into the screen). chubasco's comment seems to indicate there's a way of looking at it that goes the other way (and that my technique results in a backwards image), but IDK — the above is the limits of what I know.

Firstly: play around with the zoom. I have a much easier time with these at smaller sizes. Second, lean in close to your monitor, so that your eyes are straining a bit to keep the image in focus. Let your eyes "relax" out of focus. At first this might seem the same, but you're getting your eyes to effectively un-cross. Line up the three dots and you should now see the hemisphere in front of the plane, rather than as a cutout.

You can see an inverse of the 3D image by simply crossing your eyes until things "line up". It will appear 3D, but things that are intended to jump out at you will sink into the page instead. But that will at least give you a general idea of how it is supposed to work. Then after you get it working this way the whole "unfocus your eyes" approach will make a little more sense.

I'd come across this before, but only just now experienced it. It seems much easier to lock on to the hidden image when it's animated. Also panning your head up/down/left/right with your eyes seems to help too.

Even when your eyes are pointing in the right direction, you eyes' lenses can be incorrectly focused. In order to see the image, you have to hit the correct combination of focus and parallax (which will disagree with what your brain is used to seeing).

> Is there something physically different about my eyes or brain compared to people who can see them?

This is possible, but probably unlikely. If you can't perceive depth, e.g. neurologically incapable, or you have less than two eyes, this won't work for you.

It is possible to have two fully working eyes but for your brain to lack the wiring to combine the two images into a single three dimensional construct in your brain. Your eyes can be fine yet you can have no binocular depth perception. If this is the case you'll not be able to see any Magic Eye pictures or SIRDSs, or get the benefit from going to a 3D showing of a film instead of a 2D showing.

It's a schooner.

you dumb bastard, it's not a schooner, it's a sailboat.

For most of my life it seemed impossible.

But a couple years ago I happened upon a magic eye image while laying with my laptop on my chest putting the display quite close and things just clicked. Now I'll spend hours flipping through magic eye images, it's only gotten easier with practice and the effect is incredible considering there's no drugs involved.

I can't either. My eyes have dramatically different failings (one is nearsighted, one far) and have since I was a child, and it seems like even with glasses on it's just not gonna happen. I'm guessing it's the "since a child" part making my brain bad at stereopsis in general, though I really don't know.

I can cross my eyes, “rattle” them, diverge them, move then semi-independently... and I’ve never seen a Magic Eye picture. I even tried to see the inverted view other people in this thread are describing by intentionally crossing my eyes and bupkis. I could almost believe it’s an Emperor’s New Clothes type of situation.

Give it another try! I wasn't able to see these at all, and I haven't attempted in well over a decade. I was able to see this in under a minute. I wonder if something with the constantly changing image helped me jump the final hurdle…

I don't know the scientific reason, but I was able to see the 3D image roughly around 5% of the times I tried. And after having success in seeing one, I was not able to learn how to do it always. The 5% success rate remained

You could probably get something by crossing your eyes instead... you will get the opposite image of what you would get by doing it properly, meaning that every 3d object will appear as carved out.

It helps if you make a conscious effort to cross your eyes; if you're unable to do that it's probably harder, if not impossible

I couldn’t as a kid but I can now. Not sure why. And unrelated: I still can’t whistle properly.

As a kid, I spent one summer learning to see Magic Eye, one summer learning to whistle (drove the other kids in my summer camp mad, I'm sure), and several months learning to snap my fingers.

I always wondered why other kids could do things that I couldn't, so I guess I spent an excessive amount of time trying to catch up :)

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