

Gravity-defying ramps take illusion prize - KC8ZKF
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100511/full/news.2010.233.html

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chmike
Direct link to the video.
[http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/2010/impossible-m...](http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/2010/impossible-
motion-magnet-like-slopes/)

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gjm11
It's well worth clicking through to the video linked from the article. The
illusion is very simple and very convincing; it's a simple matter of
perspective, but even after seeing how it works I can't make myself see it
"right".

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cbernini
Same here. It's totally mind blowing.

I just don't know if I'd have the same problem if it wasn't a video but I had
the subject right in front of me. But since it won a illusion prize, I guess
my answer is already there.

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patio11
For whatever reason, Japanese vision researchers seem to do this sort of thing
a lot. At the ex-ex-day job, where we had a robot vision lab, I'd get a "Check
out this demo from X at Y university" email at least twice a week.

Dr. Kitaoka was our office favorite:

<http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html>

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mvalle
A true gold-mine of illusions.

The "Kochi-jo castle and Kinkaku" illusison (
<http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/tagi3e.html> ) is quite fascinating.
Close-by observers see one castle and far-away observers see an other castle.

I wonder if you could use this technique in marketing. Where you would have a
sign that showed different things, depending on how far away you are standing.

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moe
_Close-by observers see one castle and far-away observers see an other
castle._

There's also an old version with faces, which I found even more impressive:
[http://farm1.static.flickr.com/171/435058989_9d83960682_o.jp...](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/171/435058989_9d83960682_o.jpg)

Take a few steps back and the faces swap!

I have seen optical effects used on billboards but not this exact one, yet.
Perhaps it's hard to achieve a good effect at billboard size.

