Stereogram Tetris

http://www.lutanho.net/play/magiceyetetris.html

by mikemoka • 13 years ago

73 45 13 years ago

sinkasapa• 13 years ago

This is just wonderful.

I've always hated tetris, but I've always been good at seeing stereograms, including animated ones, so I thought I'd give this a go.

Can't lock on, and gives me eye-ache within minutes.

So if you're having trouble, you're not the only one. It might be wonderful, but despite finding auto-stereograms easy, I can't see this at all.

tyilo• 13 years ago

I can't see this either, however the old version works for me (but the controls doesn't work for me): http://www.lutanho.net/play/magiceyetetris5.html

crazygringo• 13 years ago

Wow... I'm actually amazed I can play this without difficulty.

It takes about a second to figure out what each new piece is, though.

And I'm pretty sure my eyes would ache horribly if I played it for more than about two minutes.

But, fascinating just to see that it can be done.

mistercow2• 13 years ago

I actually find that eyes burning and watering is more of a problem with prolonged exposure to stereograms, although I get that with 3D movies using glasses too.

A while back, I watched Captain America in side by side mode on my computer. Only problem was that in SBS they put the left eye on the left and the right on the right. To view that as a stereogram would require "wall-eyed" vergence, which is basically impossible to do beyond a certain angular distance - I'd have had to watch it all tiny. So as an experiment in perceptual adaptation, I watched the whole movie cross-eyed, so that I perceived the depth as inverted.

It wasn't really enough time for full perceptual adaptation, although by the end of it, I basically found that my brain had stopped paying attention to dept whatsoever unless I consciously thought about it.

Anyway the point is that at the end, I let my eyes slide back into their normal state, and they burned for a while after like they were dry, but they didn't ache at all.

That said, I have spent a ludicrous amount of time in my life setting my vergence to values outside of the manufacturer's recommended range. So my results may not be typical.

Myrth• 13 years ago

Had no problem with seeing pieces, got 1720 score, but also got nauseous really quick..

Two9A• 13 years ago

Yeah, I had a little trouble locking on to the well at first; I kept seeing the sides as pieces, and trying to move them.

Ended up alright though; score of 2080, and that's only because I lost vision after sneezing. This is a fun little concept.

patdennis• 13 years ago

I have never in my life been able to see one of these things correctly, and I've tried since about age 7 or so. One day!

aerolite2• 13 years ago

It's a schooner.

bariswheel• 13 years ago

A sailboat IS a schooner...

etfb• 13 years ago

Thank you. I came here to say this. You have saved me the shame.

keeperofdakeys• 13 years ago

You just have to un-focus your eyes, and wait. Sometimes it can take a few minutes. I'd suggest trying for a bit with this example, it's amazing once you get the hang of it.

dhughes• 13 years ago

I have difficulty too I find if I put my nose right up to a stereogram stare as if at an object off far away then move back very very slowly I may be able to see it.

spacecowboy• 13 years ago

The key is to relax your eyes, let them get lazy like you stayed up all night and cross them just a bit. Focus on just one spot and it should come into focus - eventually :)

mattdeboard• 13 years ago

I could never get it either, then I figured it out.

You know how when you cross your eyes you get like two different perspectives of whatever you're looking at? Well if you focus in the right way, there's a "middle" perspective between those two. That is where I can see these stereograms or whatnot.

ollysb• 13 years ago

This is exactly what I do. You'll notice that there is a pattern repeated horizontally across the page. Now cross your eyes until 2 of the repetitions are on top of each other. Once they're on top of each other the image will pop out(you may need to move your head backwards or forwards to make the image pop out). To increase the clarity just focus on one of the edges of the 3d image and your brain will tune it up.

Try it on this picture of a dinosaur[1], notice the 7 white bird-like shapes repeated across the page. Cross 2 of those over and you should see the image of the dinosaur appear.

[1] http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/5069/diansor.jpg

nemetroid• 13 years ago

There are two ways to view 3D images: parallel and cross-eyed. This page has some nice images[1].

What you're describing is the cross-eyed way. The parallel way has the disadvantage that the separation between the two images can't be too big (no more than about 5 cm at arms length is my guess), while cross-eyed images can have very large separation (e.g. two side-by-side images[2]).

In return, once you learn how to put your eyes into parallel mode, it's incredibly easy and quick to do so compared to cross-eyed viewing, and much much less taxing on your eyes (since they are pointing in only slightly unnatural angles), and with more easily discernable details.

(also, if you try to view an image with the opposite viewing method it was designed for, it'll come out with the depth inversed, e.g. the raptor image linked by another poster[3] should stand out, rather than look "punched-in")

[1] http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html

[2] http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2073/1620326328_6dc93774bc_z.j...

[3] http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/5069/diansor.jpg

Zr40• 13 years ago

I can easily see stereographic images where you have to focus on a plane in front of the picture, but with this implementation you should focus behind the picture. That's hard for me to do, and this implementation doesn't allow this to be toggled.

mavhc• 13 years ago

You can focus in front if you wish, the depth is just reversed but that doesn't matter, may be easier if you zoom in the page. I got 4860 focusing behind

prawks• 13 years ago

Zooming helped me as well, it allows you to fill more of your vision which I find helps.

OmegaHN• 13 years ago

It would be much easier to play this if you could pause without blocking the image.

EGreg• 13 years ago

Whoa, trippy. I did it and played a game but now my head feels kind of weird

ben0x539• 13 years ago

Is it just me or is this narrower than a normal tetris playing field?

myhf• 13 years ago

This is 5 columns. A standard tetris board is 10 columns.

ctdonath• 13 years ago

I can focus on it fast, but there's no tablet friendly controls. Looks great, wish I could play it on an iPad.

rdtsc• 13 years ago

Ha! A blast from the past. Who remembers buying those Magic Eye books? I had some friends as a kid who could not see them. And remember struggling for a week to see them myself. After finally getting it I felt like I was in an exclusive club somehow.

gizmo686• 13 years ago

I never was able to see them with my naked eye. Of course, the hacker in me want to figure it out, so I spent day figuring out how to reveal the picture. The solution is to XOR the image with an itself at a variable phase shift. There is one phase shift that reveals the general shape, then increasing it shows the 3-dimensional details (you'll want to bitmask with the general shape here).

The way I assume it works is that our brains naturally filter out patterns so we can see the interesting stuff. In a stereogram, the underlying image is XOR'ed with a random pattern that is repeated, and therefore filtered out by our brain. Interestingly, the repeated pattern is not constant, so if you XOR the image against the first instance of the pattern it will look increasingly noisy as you get further into the picture.

GhotiFish• 13 years ago

Just tried it, that's a really neat way to reveal them.

itomatik• 13 years ago

awesome idea!

fusiongyro• 13 years ago

It's definitely cool, and I hope you didn't get a migrate developing it. Downside is that having the score and other messages not part of the stereogram means you have to unfocus to see them. It would be even more awesome if the whole thing were 3D.

mserdarsanli• 13 years ago

For those having hard time to see, I believe expecting something to see beforehand would help you see it. I weren't able to 'see' those images, but after I saw once the rest were easy.

So I'll describe what you should expect to see. The image consist of 3 equal sized columns. Left and right columns are not part of the tetris field and have the same depth with the page itself (Z=0). Middle column is the tetris field with 5 playable columns which is the deepest layer on the page (Z=-2). And the tetris pieces are on an intermediate layer between those two layers (Z=-1). You now should be able to imagine what the game will be like. Hope that helps.

bfrs2• 13 years ago

If you are having trouble with this, wikipedia has some good instructions which helped me. First try autostereograms [1] (these are more simpler to see), and then simple random dot stereograms (RDS) [2], and finally magic eye static and moving stereograms.

BTW, the book which introduced RDS: "Foundations of Cyclopean Perception" by Bela Julesz is considered one of the most influential books in cognitive science. With just a computer, using no invasive microelectrodes and animal sacrifices, he proved a fantastic result...stereopsis (fusion of the individual images from each eye) occurs before object recognition!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-dot_stereogram

bfrs2• 13 years ago

a simple autostereogram:

   1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1
   
   2      2      2      2      2      2      2      2      2      2   
   
   3       3       3       3       3       3       3       3       3  
   
   4        4        4        4        4        4        4        4   
   
   5         5         5         5         5         5         5      
   
   6          6          6          6          6          6          6
   
   7           7           7           7           7           7

newsmaster• 13 years ago

OMG, finally focussed my eyes only to realize theres no controls. I'm on Chrome/Mac and neither arrows ASDW or space work.

theon144• 13 years ago

Great experiment, but it always takes me a while to focus on the image (I expected that's why the pause option is there but no, a modal javascript alert pops-up).

nmeofthestate2• 13 years ago

Drag the dialog box to the side.

Skalman• 13 years ago

Not possible with Firefox.

christogreeff• 13 years ago

My gf thinks I'm crazy

mistercow2• 13 years ago

Finally a use for my super power!

When I was a kid I was obsessed with inventing a 3D TV. I went to the library and tried to understand how holograms worked and everything. I was so intrigued by stereopsis that I would constantly try to get any two similar objects in my field of view to "combine" by crossing my eyes until they locked. I'd hold my index fingers in front of my face, and then either cross my eyes or stare past them to bring them together, and see how far I could move them apart before I lost the lock.

I obtained the power of exceptional vergence. I was actually surprised to find that only two or three people I've met can make non-auto-stereograms (two photos side by side) work at all. And to this day, autostereograms resolve automatically for me.

My only weaknesses are cheap faux wood flooring and other short period tilings.

And Tetris. Man I suck at Tetris.

harrytuttle• 13 years ago

Great work, but I need an ibuprofen after a few minutes :)

jimbobjimface• 13 years ago

I love these, can see them instantly. You can make them yourself with just a text editor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_stereogram Here's a good example: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/95/261226567_2ed2262f54.jpg

djrconcepts• 13 years ago

This is great.

Stereogram Tetris

Related Stories