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Comment by zehaeva | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, there's some people out there who cannot see these. Not for a lack of trying, I've personally been trying since the 90s.

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I have always had trouble with magic-eye pictures - I am told my eyes are quite different shapes. I can see stereograms with some effort.

I believe that there is a small percentage of the population for whom stereoscopic images (including 3d films) just don't work at all. Either they lack the ability to perceive depth directly or their brains aren't fooled by images with no parallax relative to their eye movements. I don't have any cites for this though.

There are two communities, you need to find out which one you belong to.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrossView

https://www.reddit.com/r/ParallelView

There is a test image you can try:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fg...

Whichever "view" looks to be closer is the one you should use.

I don't get it... the reddit image is the same on both sides. Trying to look at it cross-eyed just gives me a headache.

"Foreground text describes viewing type" - there is no foreground, it's just text on a page?

It’s not the same. They are slightly different and depending on whether you cross-eye or parallel view them, both texts will slightly move away or towards you in 3D.

My eyes must be broken, I don't see that at all.

I don't think I understand what the image is supposed to do. I can only see from one eye at a time.

Have you tried using pipes/kitchen towel rolls?

As in, try doing something like this:

1. Zoom the images small enough to be almost parallel to your eyes.

2. Make a binocular out of used kitchen rolls.

3. Each side should look at exactly one of the images

It should just work. Both images should converge like they do in a binocular.

(you can then try removing this DIY binocular suddenly and see if you can maintain focus)

Presumably that would only work for the wall-eyed (diverging) images given at the bottom of the screen, the cross-eyed (converging) images given throughout most of the article wouldn't work with this technique.

It took me a while too. Especially those double images that look totally contorted and only come out when you relax your focus. It took ages but suddenly they popped and now i can do them every time. Once they came through they were crystal clear.

I am with you. I could also never see the hidden image things. Been trying for 40 years.

I made a stereogram a few years back that turned out to be unusually easy for people to view. Perhaps you'll have luck with it:

https://www.damninteresting.com/temp/damn-interesting-stereo...

The trick is to focus normally on the image, then move your focus to be a few inches behind your screen, as if you're looking through it at something behind.

What should I see?

A triangle with an exclamation mark inside.

The trick for me was to completely cross my eyes and produce the double images, then slowly uncross/cross them until I could start to see the image, which eventually clears up.

Do you manage to align the two small white squares above each picture so they are on top of each other?

Yes.

Amblyopia and monocular diplopia here. No way I can see these, my brain won't let me.

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