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Comment by junto | Hacker News Reader

I hate these things. Ever since I was a child I've never been able to see them, no matter how far away, how much I squint, nothing, nada.

As a child I became convinced that everyone was taking the piss out of me. Aged nearly forty, I stand by that!

I still can't see the damn things ;-)

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Put two dots above the (smallest increment of the) repeating part of the pattern. Work on getting those two dots to overlay (forming three dots with the one in the center bright and those on the outside lighter.)

Once you can do that it's as easy as moving your eyes down while maintaining your eye position (and if that really doesn't work you can try drawing two dark black lines down the image.)

Enjoy! Unless you can't get those dots to overlay in which case you at least then know why you were never able to do it :)

So I learnt how to do it as a kid.

Basically, what I do is, imagine you are looking through the image and past it, like if you were looking through a tiled window and wanted to focus on the on something outside small. Then after refocusing your eyes (you can't blink or else it'll reset your eyes) keep doing it, it can take you ages, what you'll see are the tiles.

Also what helped me, is focusing on a single point and moving back and forth.

Good luck!

To be honest, I actually think it is something (medical) to do with my eyesight. I have poor eyesight in one eye, and a bit better on the other. I also have astigmatism in both eyes.

I find parallel viewing difficult but cross-eyed quite easy. If you can raise a finger and squint and consistently manage to see two fingers, you should manage:

Do it again with two fingers in front of you, you should be able to see four fingers. Adapt how much you squint in order to see "three" fingers (i.e. two of them overlap). (Practice to perfectly control how much you squint: you should start at zero squinting and increase slightly until you achieve the overlapping.)

Once you can do that easily, replace your fingers by the SIRDS generated on that website. Instead of two fingers, you use two features on that image that you see are repeating. You choose two of them that are next to each other. You do exactly as with your finger: turn those two features in "three". Now I think this is the harder part: as you do that, you have to relax and let your view adapat so as the image becomes perfectly neat (not blurry at all).

Does squinting work? (for someone else, that is, not the guy I'm replying too where it obviously doesn't). It's just a matter of focusing your eye behind the screen. The moment I found the ease of it was when I was pretty close and had my hand behind the screen (laptop) for some "distance" to focus on. Now I seem to get everyone, at least once. Then I can't get it again very easy for some reason..

EDIT: As a cue from another response, focusing on your own reflection works really well (even if the reflection is not super visible it works for me, although a smidge harder).

I always found it diffult to focus behind. However it's much easier to focus before, but it makes the depth inverted. As a kid I always did it this way and was frustated because it makes it very hard to recognize the subject.

You're probably pretty familiar with how things appear when you intentionally cross your eyes. When you intentionally focus farther away the appearance of close items is "different"... sort of like cross eyed focus but not really. Normally this is a strong signal to your vision system to change to a closer focus and this is pretty close to an autonomous response... but with practice and control you can control it.

It might help to practice explicitly changing your focus from far to close and back to far (the back to far part is what you should pay attention to and practice). Do this practice with your monitor's edge (or the text at the very top of the monitor) and the paper. Get used to how the monitor looks when you're focused well behind it (your brain/eyes "naturally" want to shift to a close focus... this is likely a survivability trait... things close to your head are important/possibly dangerous... so overriding this takes careful practice/effort/concentration).

Try positioning the image at the top of your monitor (if you have a narrow bezel) and make sure the image is only about two thirds or one half visible (i.e. scrolled up a bit). Behind your monitor, a foot or two away, have something easy to look at (eg. blank piece of white paper). Pay attention to your peripheral vision... but don't change where you're looking... just be aware of what's in your peripheral vision, especially the weird color pattern. It should appear "weird" because it doesn't match your memory of the actual pattern... if you know what I mean. Still focusing on the paper, and paying attention to your peripheral vision, move your head up/down a little bit, try not to move your eyes... i.e. where you're focused should move up/down the same amount. You should notice the weirdness (in your peripheral vision) of the image increase/change. Now... if the paper is far enough behind your monitor... when you move your head down farther you should start to see "something". By focusing farther away the "something" should become much clearer. Gradual move your attention to the "something" (keep moving your head) and your focus should naturally move out and the items become clear (especially if you're moving your head... the background will move behind the items in the foreground).

Note for the image from the article the items are just a few narrow triangles, some close, some farther away, some overlapped.

Also... make sure your eyes are level with the image. Rotate your head a few degrees (10... maybe 15 or 20) and the image cannot be seen.

The first time you see one of these images you might be disappointed. They are just 3d shapes wrapped in a strange color pattern (the same pattern in the background and on all objects).

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