Archives Posts

More Optical Illusion Pictures for Your Websites

April 19th, 2009 by admin

My fourth set of small optical illusion and visual perception related images you can link to from your own website / profile page.

Escaping criticism by Borel, an oil painting about 120 years old

The bars are parallel but appear to be wider at the top – an example of the Ponzo illusion.

Coloured moiré elephant

All the bars are the same width – but do they look it?

Someone's holding someone else's severed head up for inspection, but which head is attached to the body? You can see it both ways.

Funky wind turbine

Impossibly twisted flying castle

A paradox: the blue arms (left) are aligned, but don't look it, even when apparently shifted towards alignment by the Muller-Lyer illusion (right) – the oblique gaps between the arrowheads are equal, but look longer between inward pointing and shorter between outward point arrows

Blade-shaped ice crystals forming in polarised light

The Zollner illusion (top) rotates the bars a touch against the background stripes, whilst the twisted cord illusion (below) rotates them strongly towards the background stripes.

A glare effect chequerboard

A wonky flower box illusion – the boxes seem to slope downwards, but would also give this view in perspective if protruding normally, but trapezoid in plan.

A wonky blade. Are the sides equal, so that the blade is leaning over, or is the near edge longer than the far one, so that it's pointing downwards? The perspective is the same either way.

A tessellated elenoceros. It repeats looking both ways both ways up, with no gaps and no overlaps.

Unfortunate incident in an art museum

The original over one hundred-year-old duck rabbit illusion (more or less), but doubled up. Isn't it easier to see two ducks or two rabbits than one of each?

Pixellated faces. Look close and they break up, move away and more detail seems to appear. Got them? It's Che, Shakespeare, Mona Lisa and Mao

Stripped down never-ending staircases. These characters will never reach the top

A fleeing sculpture is entangled in a vertical figure ground reversal between the columns, and climbing them won't help – they reverse horizontally half way up

Sinusoidal Zollner illusion

Flying witches encounter figure ground spacewarps at Halloween

Can you find the word WEIRD? (Check the gaps)

Do you see a star, a hexagon or lozenges in a ring? Optical games in a seventeen hundred year old mosaic floor at Casale in Sicily, Southern Italy

The right hand Big Ben seems to be leaning over more – but look again, the two pictures are identical.

In case you missed them you can still see the third set of illusion pictures, the second perception pictures as well as the first set of illusion pictures.

Filed under Mini images for your site, Optical Illusions having 3 Comments »

Archives Posts

Third set of optical illusion pictures

January 27th, 2009 by admin

Here is another set of small optical illusion and visual perception related images you can link to from your own website / profile page.

An induced contrast paradox: the middle green bar is light top and dark bottom when seen together with the left hand green bar, but all one tone when compared with the right hand green bar.

False coloured decoration from a 6th century BCE Corinthian Greek vase: do you see the beasts as dark outlines on a pale background, or pale shapes on a dark ground?

An impossible shape impossibly reflected.

Do you see a young wife looking away or an old granny? Coloured version of cartoonist E.W.Hills 1915 take on a famous ambiguous figure.

The Poggendorff illusion in 3D ? if you have the knack of viewing 3D picture pairs without a viewer.

Santa turns into Norwegian dramatist Ibsen (well, someone a bit like Ibsen).

A folding screen version of the Poggendorff illusion ? do the blue edges look aligned? They are.

Ambiguous antler illusion: the stag has two antlers down by his ears but three higher up.

The Hermann grid: illusory dark spots come and go where the lines intersect.

The vertical/horizontal illusion: the vertical line looks longer than the horizontal line, but is the same length.

A top hat version of the vertical/horizontal illusion: it looks about as wide as high, but is much wider.

A spacewarp: a vertical surface becomes horizontal and vice versa as your eye travels across the image.

The Ponzo illusion: The ladies are the same size, but seem to grow larger with distance.

A variant on Days sine wave illusion: the bars are all the same height but look shorter where the band climbs steeply.

A figure / ground effect on a shield from Koave, Papua New Guinea: are those light eye-lashes on a dark ground, or dark zig-zag face-paint on pale skin?

An induction illusion: the four-armed star is an illusion.

This martyr is holding up his own head for inspection ? but which head is still attached to his body, and which is being held up for inspection? You can make it work both ways.

Kitten with bubble puzzle.

Induced illusory contrast when a Peano-Gosper curve is seen against a contrast change background

A variant of Edward Adelsons chequerboard illusion: the arrowed squares, a pale one in shadow and a dark one outside the shadow, are identical shades of grey, but that?s not how they look

The Zollner illusion enhanced by size-constancy effects. Where long lines flank convex step edges both illusions co-operate, so the lines seem to diverge with distance. Where lines flank concave edges the illusions conflict and the long lines appear parallel.

The Hering figure: parallel bars seem to curve against a radiating line background.

Poultry puzzled by the Poggendorff illusion, and who shall blame them?

Christs eye in swelling and dwindling engraved lines from a three hundred and fifty year old print by French artist Claude Mellan.

A bird silhouette in coloured Moire: the horizontal lines are an illusion

In case you missed them you can still see the second perception pictures as well as the first set of illusion pictures.

Filed under Mini images for your site, Optical Illusions having 2 Comments »

Archives Posts

More Illusion Pictures

November 12th, 2008 by admin

Here are some more small optical illusion and visual perception related images you can link to from your own website / profile page.

Naked figures make up a face in this detail from a 150 year old print by Kuniyoshi

A twisted cord effect: these parallel letters look wonky thanks to the way they are embedded in the chequered background

The Mueller-Lyer illusion: an identical line appears longer between inward facing arrowheads than outward facing ones

Morinagas paradox: The horizontal gap between the arrowheads facing inwards looks longer than the identical gap between the middle arrowheads facing outwards, yet from the apparent vertical alignment of the arrow tips you would expect the opposite

A Necker cube: it wont come right, whether you try to see it as if looking down from above, or looking up from below

An odd couple: her head is his upside down

Orbisons illusion: a perfect square looks bendy because of the background nested circles

Orbisons illusions: a perfect square and circle look squashed because of the background of radiating lines

An ever-receding staircase: these penguins are heading away from us, but will never get anywhere on this magic ring staircase.

Ethereal, all-spectrum bubble

Grey glow: the glare effect in a ghostly context

Reutersvards cube version of the impossible tribar, with added twists

Sander parallelograms: The diagonals in the small segments look shorter than the ones in the large segments, but are identical in length

Shepards tables: the tabletops are identical in size on the screen, yet one looks short and squat, the other long and thin

The pattern elements in this tessellation transform, yet fit together like jigsaw pieces without gaps or overlaps

Titcheners circles: the two central spheres are identical in size, but the one surrounded by larger spheres looks smaller

Are these nested triangles coming or going?

Twisted arch: something mighty strange has happened to the Arc de Triomphe

How to turn a troll into a hedgehog: reflect him in a mirror and knock him over

Inside becomes outside as you travel round this magic ring

The wonky window: the upper right window is identical to the upper left one, but seems to lean towards it

The bars are parallel but seem to diverge upwards thanks to the zebra pattern background

In case you missed them you can still view the first set of illusion pictures.

Filed under Mini images for your site, Optical Illusions having 3 Comments »

Archives Posts

Illusion Pictures

September 28th, 2008 by admin

Here are a few small optical illusion and visual perception related images you can link to from your own website / profile page.

Ehrensteins illusion: white circles appear superimposed on the sunbursts.

The smooth outer edge of the small arch is also the inner edge of the large arch

Ethereal blue bubble

The middle character in this trio from a house facade in Papua New Guinea shares his arms and legs with his neighbours, and they?ve all got faces on their tummies as well as flower feature heads above.

The Kindergarten illusion: the lines are all parallel but don?t look it

Kaniszas triangle: the wedges cut from the circles and the interrupted lines combine to define an illusory triangle, which can seem just a little brighter than the white background

Jastrows illusion: The upper blade looks smaller, but is the same size as the lower one.

This impossible figure doesn?t just have three arms and legs, they run into the background.

Never ending staircase: once start going up or down and you?ll never get off.

Each of the blocks in this impossible ring recedes from us, so they could only connect into a bendy snake in the real world, not a ring

Power specs: a glare effect arises from the shading gradation in the crosses

Is it a duck looking right, or a rabbit looking left?

A Fraser spiral: The yellow line shows that this pattern is made up of circles, though it appears to spiral

The glare effect: its the blurry shading that does it

This impossible fork has three prongs at the top but only two at the bottom

Ambiguous interlace: the edges of the hexagon are also the ends of fans of lines in this 600 year old ceiling from Christchurch in Oxford

The faces/vase illusion: Do you see two faces looking at one another or a vase?

Do you see overlapping rings or zig-zagging lozenges in this Roman Mosaic floor from Casale in Sicily?

The Cafe Wall illusion: with mid-tone lines in between the blocks, this parallel pattern looks wonky

Ethereal evening bubble

The Poggendorff illusion (the lines leaning right are aligned but don?t look it) in a Kanisza version (the lines are illusory edges joining up razorred blobs).

A head composed of fruits and vegetables from a five hundred year old painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Inside turns outside as you go around this twisted ring

Do you see a saint with a lantern reflected vertically or balustrades reflected horizontally?

Filed under Mini images for your site, Optical Illusions having No Comments »

Check out our 100 illusion images you can use on your blog, Facebook or MySpace profiles.

You can also use any of the still images on the site (unless third party copyright is indicated) for your own private, non-commercial purposes.

Visit our shop for illusions and effects beautifully printed for you on posters, clothing and more.

Recent Posts

Archives:

Search:

Meta: