Prepare to be baffled

[Ombligo]

This is a finalist for the Best Illusion of the Year Contest, an event run by the Neural Correlate Society, an "organization that promotes scientific research into the neural correlates of perception and cognition." The cylinder/square trick comes from Kokichi Sugihara, an engineering professor at Meiji University in Japan.



To get the full effect, watch the one minute video

And after your done being baffled, here is how it was done

Oh, and it only placed second.

[DP]

Photoshop!

[RAMd®d]

Ok, that was way cool!

I wasn't too baffled, as I thought I knew the solution was one of two possibilities.

I was wrong on both counts.

For me, the solution was far more amazing than the illusion, and made me appreciate the it more on the second viewing.

[DeusxMac]

Note lack of corner shadows (red) where planes "appear" to meet/intersect. They should look like shadows where planes actually do meet/intersect (yellow).

Where such a shadow is missing, the object's planes do not actually meet/intersect.

[DP]

Good fun but because I've seen similar illusions before I had an inkling it was something like that but I wasn't right on...

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Reminds me of a 2nd semester high school drafting quiz.

[artie67]

I noticed the first unit distorted when turned. I have to see the "How" to find out why. Cool.

[RAMd®d]

Reminds me of a 2nd semester high school drafting quiz.

I never took drafting or 'mechanical drawing' as it was called back then.

But I remember the kiddies running around showing everybody two different illusions as though they were master magicians or something.

Those were 'oh, huh' illusions.

This one was actually interesting.

[freeradical]

It's kind of like anamorphic art.

[ka jowct]

I can be baffled by far less.