Large Scale Optical Illusion

[jaurand]

I found this interesting, and I thought you might too!

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/28/artist-turns-village.html

[Canuck]

I'm not really gettin' it? 

[gibell]

I'm not really gettin' it? 

I think it makes the buildings look 2D from one specific vantage point.  Since photos are 2D this could be hard to convey in a photo.

[Chinnomotto]

 
I see dead people, I hear little voices,,,,

Am I close??   

[Arc Light]

Yikes!  It looks like someone set coffee mugs down all over the village    John I think what the artist did is paint lines on the buildings that from one vantage point looks like it connects the lines and you get these 2d circles, that would cause you eye to think the village is 2d as well, although I am still going with the coffee mug stain theory 

[gibell]

Maybe kind of like this optical illusion ??

This is a "multi-level optical illusion".  Not only is the car "invisible", but the artist appears four times!!

Here is a photo of the same car from a different vantage point

[gibell]

Here is an interesting photo of myself, my wife, and kids.  As you can see we are a very large family!!   

[Arc Light]

Greg your family photo is fantastic, at first glance I would say it's all done with mirrors, but there's more going on here than meets the eye, because if you look closely the mirrors frame actually runs around in a spiral into the center of the photo    I am a little confused at how this was taken?  Did you use any photo editing software, or is this right out of the camera.  Great work!

[jstrayer]

Check out the wonderful anamorphic art of Julian Beever as well:

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/swim.htm

[gibell]

I am a little confused at how this was taken?  Did you use any photo editing software, or is this right out of the camera.  Great work!

Peter, this image has been seriously modified, out of the camera it just shows us holding a picture frame.  I suggested this effect to a professional photographer when he was taking portraits of us.  One needs specialized software to create this.  He told me it is actually now possible to do it in Photoshop with a plug-in or some add-on.

-George

[Arc Light]

Thanks George   Sorry, I saw the "G" and accidentally wrote Greg    fantastic photo even if a computer was involved!  

[rolly_wood]

George, nice effect! cool fractal family...  what you need as starting photo?... I would suppose one with people present and one another with  just the bakground. Or you do not need this latter?

Escher building: http://opticalillusion.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/escher-benedetti.jpg
but the cut, mirror and paste operation did not considered the sun.... now is both shining from both the left and right side

I saw an only house like that...... but ...... because it spins... 
It was a significant engineering enterprise for the period and for the technologic "status" of the my country in those years

http://www.internimagazine.it/Dynamic/Publication,intCategoryID,3,intIssueID,321,intItemID,330,intLangID,2.html

This is me at the villa (unfortunately found closed) http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/369/18villagirasolemarcelli.jpg

I am off-topic , sorry ....  I was surprised to see such a large building (made by concrete) thought as rotating in 1929, after WWI .... in italy of course.. I suppose  that golden-gate was built  in those years too but in US!

PS there is a wonderful landscape aroud it, olive trees and vineyard http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/435/27villagirasolemarcelli.jpg. I wish to say that I have no interests at all in showing this to you. 
Just to share my pleasure for the visit to a strange place. All in all seeing a house like that to rotate was (one century ago in the poor italian countryside) almost an illusion That's why I posted it 
PPS Peter I thought Greg would be a nick of George 

[gibell]

George, nice effect! cool fractal family...  what you need as starting photo?... I would suppose one with people present and one another with  just the bakground. Or you do not need this latter?

The starting photo is us holding an (empty) frame.  Only one photo is needed.

The same effect is used by Escher in his Print Gallery lithograph.  It involves conformal maps, and some pretty heavy math (although Escher did not know about this and remarkably still got it right).  But this Droste Effect is becoming more popular and there are now some band videos using it.  The effect is really bizarre in a video as the effect is of continually zooming into something.

Don't worry Peter, I don't mind being called Greg.  

[rolly_wood]

Very interesting George....Did you use the transformations like those described here http://www.josleys.com/article_show.php?id=82?
If I wanted to try, I suppose I need the image in a plain uncompressed format and do a code for mapping one image into another.... I already did something similar many years ago, I remind that to avoid holes (due to rounding off the pixel coordinates) in the destination image, the strategy is to start from this latter and apply an inverse transformation, is it correct? In case, anyway, I am probably able to calculate the inverse of a simple rotation,... but not of a complicate expression (provided that it is possible)...
Any info, without disclosing anything you may want to maintain as personal, will be welcome.