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Comment by the__alchemist | Hacker News Reader

If you've done Magic Eyes, this is straightforward. Was able to get all 3 of the test images quickly.

This is with focusing beyond the screen. Focusing in front of the screen is something I am unable to do, and not for want of effort.

Also, your eyes might accidentally do this if looking at tiled patterns, e.g. wallpaper.

Relative image size (e.g. view distance) is important.

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As a kid, I got a Magic Eye book and learned to see it by crossing my eyes (ie, focusing in front of the screen). I thought it was pretty interesting when I realized that I was seeing all the images inverted ("peaks" were "valleys" and vice versa) due to the way I was focusing. Alas, I never was able to see the images "correctly".

Instead of crossing your eyes to focus in front of the image, you have to uncross them and focus on something behind the image. Put your finger about six inches in front of your face and then look at the horizon. If the horizon is in focus you should see two fingers.

Focusing behind is much easier because you can get yourself started by focusing on an actual object.

Focusing in front can be done by focusing on an actual object too? Many people e.g. put a finger between them and the picture and then remove it.

The finger method interferes more with the third image in my experience.

Same -- much harder to get them to go the other way. I'm surprised that cross-eyed random dot stereograms never took off; so much easier to do.

It's funny because even if you do the Magic Eye pictures "correctly" (focusing past them) you can still get funky images by going too far and locking the surrounding pattern a second time. If I remember right the first time I did this was on a heart picture (similar to [0]), which ends up looking like a big puffy W stacked on top of a slightly larger puffy W :D

[0] https://i0.wp.com/www.magiceye.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/1...

Thanks that's one of the beautifully crafted magic eye images, bring me back memories about 20 years ago when it was a craze.

Wasn't it a craze around 1992?

Are you sure that's supposed to be a heart? I see the three peaks of a "W" as well -- I think it's supposed to be a tulip, no? That also matches the background theme.

The background is flowers, but the hidden image is most certainly the classic heart shape.

If you see 3 peaks you went too far - which is really easy to do on mobile. I had to be careful to go only "once deep".

Yep, well at least 98% sure anyway. But you're right, that 'second level' image does look a lot like a tulip, much better description than what I said about W's :) And of course this led me to try zooming out a bit and going for level 3+... kinda feels like I'm looking down at the top of a strangely shaped wedding cake, which would also go nicely with the flowers and heart theme. Thanks for giving me an excuse to take another look!

I think I just locked the pattern also a third time where it looks like pillars but I’m not sure if I saw it correctly.

When I first looked at this picture I saw the W pattern and then blinked and suddenly saw the intended pattern.

When you lock on the non-intended ones it feels somehow like a secret/forbidden path you shouldn’t go, like consuming drugs.

You can also cross your eyes the other way and make the pattern in a MagicEye pop the other way (in vs out, or vice versa)

Yup, I loved Magic Eyes as a kid. This was easy.

Nevertheless, I was astonished that "impossible mode" literally took me only 1-2 seconds to find the missing star.

Like, I knew our vision is good at interpreting depth from images. I figured it would be all right at finding large areas of differences. I had no idea a single freaking pixel could stand out like a sore thumb.

I had trouble finding the "shiny" pixels on that one simply because the stars also had that issue - but after enlarging the image a bit more and scanning back and forth I was able to pick things out a bit better.

Now, ask me to look at my code again for a couple minutes and it might be tough but it worked :)

Maybe we are the opposite. As a kid, I could only do cross-eyed-focus-in-front-of-screen, but not "focus beyond the screen". Or a book at the time.

So I was able to see the 3D in Magic Eyes, but the 3D effect was inverted.

Today as an adult I am able to focus beyond the screen, but it's still much easier for me to do it cross-eyed.

I also got all the images in the post almost right away. But my eyeballs focused in front instead > _ <

I have a slightly lazy right eye, so this has always come naturally to me, but I will say it's considerably easier to achieve the false focal lock on printed material— something about screens, even quality ones with high refresh rates, just isn't the same.

How do you do this focusing beyond the screen!?

I'm trying so hard to make this happen. Stare really far in the distance and then move the image in front of my face on my phone. No matter the distance between my face and my phone i can't overlap the images.

Focus in front of the screen is the easy one. How do you get beyond....

You know how you can make your eyes see double when you cross your eyes a bit? Do this and you get 4 images. Combine align the center 2 images and your eyes will automatically “lock on”.

That's the focus in front right?

What's the beyond?

It has roughly the same effect.

Try it first with your fingers. Hold up your index fingers pointing straight up in front of the computer screen but in front of your face. Focus on the screen. The fingers should divide into four. Move your fingers until they combine.

If you focus on your fingers you can do the same thing to the screen.

omg I got it!!!

Earlier I was looking out a window and thusly way too far. Now I'm in my bed and its about 3m to the wall and with your instructions it worked great.

It works pretty much the same as you said. Thanks for sticking it out with me!

Np man. Gj.

I'm great at magic eyes / stereograms and have a ton of posters around my house with them, but I still had trouble with seeing the differences in the test images. I easily locked in my focus on the overlapping cat images but only one difference stood out to me. I eventually got them all but it wasn't that easy (maybe with practice I could get there). The differences are noticeable when I focus right on it, but when I'm looking at the whole image it's harder to tell what is missing from one eye.

Are you able to look around while keeping your "unified vision"?

To me, all the differences appeared to be flashing (probably my brain alternates between the pair of images it attempts to "lock in", or something to that effect).

I can get the images to merge but the differences don't stand out.

Are you able to confirm the images are completely aligned? You can do this using landmarks, like the brightest stars on the telescope pic. I.e. if you see more than one of any landmark, it is not aligned. You may need to adjust zoom, and distance from face.

I find there's a two step process, first overlapping the images (but which makes the images blurry), then letting my eyes refocus so the middle image is crisp. Only then does 3D or shimmer effect happen. Takes some practice to merge the images while maintaining focus for me.

I can do magic eyes, but this technique doesn't work for me. My left eye is dominant enough that the whole image just looks like what my left eye is seeing.

I’ve done Magic Eyes a lot, but I’m failing on this. (However, I found the difference in the coffee beans picture reasonably fast without the eye-crossing trick, and before reading what the difference is.)

I challenge you to use this refocusing ability to pass the Stroop Test: https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html

You are given a list of color names, written in font colors that are incongruous with the written word. E.g. "Red" will be written in a blue font, and "Green" will be written in a yellow font.

You have to say the font color and not the written word.

It's challenging, but it's yet another application where going cross-eyed confers an advantage.

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