Cool effect. For me, it only works on a screen where the white dots are roughly the distance of my eyes. So not on a phone.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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The above stereographic image is for cross-eyed viewing (most stereograms are wall-eyed, so you may need to put your finger in front of your screen until this one comes into focus)
This is an image of Honolulu, Hawaii, published by NASA. Note Diamond Head (the volcanic crater) in the south.
Here are some other stereopairs published by JPL:
Wheeler Ridge, California
Mount Saint Helens
Salt Lake Valley, Utah
Wellington, New Zealand
About 21 years ago (π©) I made a stereoscopic photo for some online contest. I was pretty proud of it.
Edit: please ignore the fact that the light doesnβt match between the shots!
Ooh, nice depth!
Thanks! It was a pain to set up the little screen trick but for what itβs worth, I won the contest!
I remember my HP IPAQ, it was my first mobile computing device. That thing was so much fun.
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Ha, there is NO depth to this kind of thing it is just an illusion, don't be fooled about what these tricky sciencists say.
Oh, also, I really miss the old JMOL molecular models that you could view in stereo. Anyone know what software is required to make those?
Boo, these are cross-view, not parallel-view.
If you want wall-eyed viewing, you can just download the image and mirror flip it in an image editor. I also personally prefer wall-eyed viewing.
This is exactly how JPL posted them, and they did cross-eyed viewing because the image jumps out of the page, rather than in (I presume).
Incorrect. You don't mirror flip it, you swap the images to convert between cross/parallel view.
Source: I wrote my own stereogram software, I know the difference.
Ah yes! Sorry, the stupid thing is, I knew that and said that to someone else last night! Thank you stranger!
I can still view these, but itβs much much harder for me.
I donβt know why parallel isnβt the default.
It varies per person. I for one can't view wall-eyed, only cross-eyed.
Same here basically, cross-eyed viewing is super easy for me but I have to work for minutes to perform wall-eyed viewing. I was really excited to see a post with cross-eyed stereograms.
Lots of people can really easily go cross-eyed and look at these with no practice whatsoever. Fewer people can do the parallel kind with no practice or with the amount of practice they've already done.
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I grew up with the Magic Eye books and have never been able to do cross-view as a result.
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For some reason I'm getting the depth inverted. Mt. Saint Helens looks like a hole in the ground.
You're doing "wall eyed" viewing. These are for "cross-eyed" viewing. "Wall-eyed" means your eyes are focusing at a point behind the image. You need to cross your eyes for these. Try putting your finger in between your screen and your eyes, varying the distance until the dots merge. Then, remove your finger, focusing on the image itself. That should allow for cross-eyed viewing.
That's so weird, I always thought I was crossing my eyes when doing this...
Same - Iβm super confused now. I donβt know what I can do anymore. I thought I just crossed my eyes until the images overlap but when I do that Iβm seeing a hole tooβ¦so I guess not?
No, there absolutely is some kind of error here via the creation.
I don't think so. When I cross my eyes, it looks correct. Wall-eyed viewing makes it look like a hole. Crossing your eyes makes them go inward. Wall-eyed makes them go parallel. They're created specifically for crossing eyes.
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That wouldn't be crossing. Crossing is when you focus your eyes in front of the image. Wall-eyed is where you unfocus your eyes behind the image. Trying to look at your nose is crossing. The way you look at most magic eye images is wall-eyed.
Thanks that was it. I can lock in and focus the wall style very fast, as it is the most common. This took me while but got it with the finger trick!
It's a schooner!
I have never ever in my life managed to make these work, I have no idea what's wrong with my eyes
you and me both. i can make the third dot appear, but the second i look away from it the effect is gone. and now my eyes hurt!
I don't think the locations are all correct.
1st: Honolulu, Hawaii
2nd: Lake Palanskoye, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russian Federation
3rd: Wheeler Ridge, California
4th: Mount St. Helens, Washington State
5th: Mount Meru, Tanzania
6th: Salt Lake City, Utah
7th: Meseta de Somuncura, Patagonia, Argentina
8th: Wellington, New Zealand
Why do all of these look inverted to me? Like, what should be a mountain is a deep hole in the ground.
These are cross-view, your probably using the focus at infinity trick instead.
Wow, I had the same problem as the one you replied to and I thought you were making a joke I didn't get but I stand corrected. You were absolutely 100% right.
Turns out I was focusing at infinity, didn't even realize it was a different thing than crossing my eyes until I tried to cross my eyes first before focusing on the pictures...
Very cool, thanks.
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I usually can do stereograms pretty well but for some reason I had to tilt my phone about 10Β° counter-clockwise for the stereo images to align to get the 3D effect.
Have you ever had your vision checked?
Not sure why but those NEVER work for me lol
Not this, not magic eye books, absolutely nothing works.
Tried for many hours back in the day
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Isn't magic eye something different? I thout it was !autostereograms@lemmy.world instead of cross view images.
You are correct, they are slightly different, but are based on the same effect of stereo imaging.
These are all backwards. The eyes are reversed so everything that's supposed to be a hole looks like a bump and vice-versa.
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I've seen simlar things before, and the effect is cool, but these images don't really seem like the best demonstration of the effect. You really want something with large variation in depth. These top-down landscape shots have quite subtle changes in relative depth. I can kinda see the effect but it's quite subtle, especially when it's so out of focus.
edit: better examples from a quick search:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f9/55/27/f95527fbe22243840f335003d795de9f.jpg
https://i0.wp.com/digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/flickr/65835354_9f7fdf4a3e_z.jpg
Now my eyes are acheing so I'm gonna stop. They're also called "stereo pair images" if you want to look up more. If you're having trouble getting the images to overlay over each other, make the image physically smaller on your screen (e.g. by zooming out of the webpage).
I agree with the general sentiment, though I believe that the value of these images from the perspective of scientific appreciation outweighs traditional Magic Eye images. I remember, ten years later on, how my professor for the geology intro course let us see images taken over Germany by British intelligence, and you could literally see how they used the stereography to find missiles, because you'd be looking at a bunch of flat terrain and then bam, there's a weird thing poking up out of the ground near that farmhouse. Then, she showed us some of these, and showed us how you could compare the topography in these to those on the topo maps. From a "wow" factor, not everything is going to be as flashy as a Royal Institution Christmas lecture, but this is what science looks like.
ETA: Wait, what do you mean "out-of-focus"?
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Thanks for the additional examples!
Is the last one (lion statue & building) a reprojection? I didn't see depth (or parallax) in the background, just between the lion and the building.
Here are some fun ones of cerebral anatomy from neuroimaging.org:
Oh, that is SO COOL! Do you have any more anatomical pictures in stereo?
I just searched for "stereo pair MRI", I didn't have others that I've seen. Glad you enjoyed them!
Ah, thanks for the edit. I still think that these have greater value from a scientific perspective, but I do also have a collection of many stereo images that I could post here for you! They're MUCH older, though:
Sorry for the poor quality here! It's difficult to take nice scans of these since they're curved with age. OH, also, these are wall-eyed, not cross-eyed.
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