Cool Optical Illusions Blog

This awesome KU fan shaved a man with sunglasses and a goatee into the back of his head. It’s complimented nicely with the painted on KU on top. Very nice. Too bad the KU basketball team couldn’t extend their season a little farther. Perhaps if every KU fan had half the attention to detail Andrew had, we could have made it a bit further in the NCAA tournament.

This is a fun little optical illusion that is a solid cement column. The photographer said it was taken in Germany. What appears at first to be a tall column that is hollow in the center, is actually something else, it is a solid cement column that has a pyramid shaped piece on top. The photographer was smart in that they looked for the exact angle to make the picture interesting.

This is a key point that doesn’t just have to be taken into account in optical illuions. Any picture you take, chances are, there is a better angle to take the picture that will make it more interesting. Taking a picture of a kid — get down to their level, or better yet, pointing up so you are looking up at their face.

Back to the illusion - Love it. Credit for the optical illusion photograph to http://prashusite.googlepages.com

Thanks for sending in this “impossible to make” wooden box. I like this better than some of the other, more basic versions of this eye trick. Taken from the correct angle, this is completely possible. However, upon close inspection, I think this may in fact be a photoshopped version of it, however, it’s not like someone would just put together a basic frame like this just to retouch the image. It’s entirely possible that this crate was built.

In the next few days, I plan on doing one similar to this, so stay tuned for it. And I’ll show it from the other angles so you can see exactly what I did in creating this impossible box.

It’s time for the moon illusion. Since the angle of the sun will be just right, we’ll get a low full moon tonight, June 17th. Take a look at the moon and it’ll absolutely appear bigger than normal because it’ll be extra bright!

It’s not the atmosphere the makes it look bigger, in fact, the moon isn’t any larger at the horizon as it is when it is high in the sky. What causes us to think this is really the relative position of the moon to objects on the ground.

So… want to enhance the illusion for yourself? Don’t just look into your backyard with the moon over your neighbors house, or your rooftop… try to get far away from a city or a wide open spot where you can see houses in the distance. The moon will appear to engulf them all! Try it out, and report your experience here.

$10 to the best moon illusion picture that is snapped and sent in with 48 hours of this post!

If you’re thinking about getting a tattoo, here’s something you should know. Scary animals with subtle drop-shadows look much better than those without. Above, you will see the original image, that this man has had tattooed. Very cool, especially how the tail of the scary arachnid looks like it’s in the air and about to strike.

Next, look at the image below and you’ll see how I edited the image so there was no drop shadow. Now it just looks like a puny drawing on his arm.

So the moral of this story is this: If you get an animal as a tat, and you want it to look a little intimidating, then you need to use a drop shadow like this guy!

The university of Kansas is 10-0 in FOOTBALL? As a KU alum, I would of course expect a record like this in basketball just about any year. But they are 10-0, and are in contention for the National Championship? Someone tell me if this is an optical illusion, and belongs on this site, because even though I see it, I don’t believe it!

For those that don’t know, if you’d like to convert to a Kansas fan, all you have to say is Rock Chalk Jayhawk! 1899, which was the last year KU was 10-0, was the year in which I.R. Johnson patents the bicycle frame.

Well, looks like the ad agency that has the Guiness book of business has been checking out our optical illusions. This is a great idea, that normally artists have used cylinders for the reflectivity. Salvador Dali would experiment with this type of curved drawing, so the reflection in the mirrored tube would be the only way to truly view the art correctly.

Here, we see a nice message of “Good things come to those who wait” reflecting in the mirrored reflection of the pint of beer. Love it! (Did you know we often get contacted about using our optical illusions and other mind-blowing tricks in advertistements? That’s because they work!)

How about having a sea turtle in your swimming pool! With the help of these optical illusion applications, you can! You can have a shark, a turtle, or just fish, painted into the bottom of your pool, but what really sells the illusion is that the shadows are part of the adhesive application so it looks like they are floating and not just pretty decoration.

Obviously, a shark would be super-cool. Post your best idea of what else you could paint in the pool!

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This is cool. Answer a bunch of questions and it’ll pin your accent. Got it perfect for me. Take some time to try it out. Takes about 5 minutes.

http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp?action=take&quiz_id=9827