By Vurdlak on March 29, 2008, with 50 Comments
Before I explain today’s optical illusion, I’d like to remind you of our previous similar illusions. This is because I find today’s example better than all the rest of the same type. First time we covered “Relative Sizes” illusion of this sort (Perspective Illusion), was all the way back in April 2006. The illusion was titled “Monsters Illusion” and was animated picture. Following were more real-life looking (although all are photoshoped because of their nature) – check Relative Sized Nuns and Ebbinghaus illusion. You can probably find few more I missed inside the right category, like “3 Soldiers“, “3 Little Piglets“.
The effect: three terrain vehicles below appear different in size because of the surrounding environment. This is because of depth perception our brain automatically processes. Now take something to measure them, and you’ll realize they are exactly the same.
(25 votes)
yay, first!
this 1 is cool i dont know how it’s done
btw, im dutch too!
How did they do this?
WOW! That is the best example of this kind of illusion I have ever seen! And I have seen a few!
Who cares if it has been Photoshopped? It looks damn cool!
Maybe even desktop background cool.
Happy Easter to you all!! (I know I am a bit late)
i love these kinds of illusions, this is a great one. our minds can tell that something in the distance is bigger than it appears, and so when an image like this convinces our brains that it is far away (by placing the car further down the street), our minds think that it must be bigger. without any surrounding terrain, you can clearly see that they are exactly the same. very nice.
No way! That’s sooo weird!
Awesome!!! Love this site. First comment?
Awesome! Really worked well, I was fooled till I took a closer look, then read to description.
Go Ford Escape!
wow that is extremely cool :p
coooolll!!!!!!
LOVE the site by the way!
You can also just squint your eyes and you can see similar sizes.
Woah, that was cool. I have seen this effect before but this was a lot better. Anyway, check your mail, I sent you something important ;)
Pretty cool ;)
Hi. It´s the first time I leave a comment but I see your website every day in my igoogle page. Your website is awesome. Keep up the good work.
FIRST COMMENT
cool ;)
WHAT!!?!?
awesome illusion
FIRST
Incredible! A true case of the eye fooling the brain, or the brain fooling the eye. In future, when i can’t find a space to park my car, i will hope that it’s a similar case of the brain and the eye not collaborating, and that the only space available, which is miniscule, is indeed a bigger space and that my car fits perfectly with enough room for manoeuvering too! :-)
Normally I can figure out a relative size illusion like this easily. But this one is just plain scary. You’ve annoyed me now. Well done. Thankyou.
Ooh, ooh, ooh! YES!!!! I finally sees it!
cool! it took me ages!
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First comment woot!
this is sh*t
That’s so weird! I’ll never figure out why our minds work like that!!
Great! this is a very good illusion! one of the best of its kind that I’ve seen! maybe even the best :P
“Following were more real-life looking (although all are photoshoped because of their nature)” Yes and, this is of course photoshopped too, right?
OMG!!!
That is one of the best illusions
ever!
Keep it going!
A.T.
wow thats pretty awesome!!!
=) I love it
That’s cool, but i figured it out just by looking at it.
Cool!=) this is very fun – realizing and telling my brain that they are the same size =)
today is Francisco Goya’s birthday, he’s 262
cool illusion
first and second posts!!!
i flipped a coin and it landed on heads.
coolillusion
whoohoo! first comment ….. but that was total photoshopped
great illusion!
even though i know they’re all the same, i still can’t see it that way…
Becca what are you trying to figure out? There’s nothing to figure out here just look and see how our mind creates size differences due to perspective….your comment is horrible :(
AND
“Anonymous said…
Normally I can figure out a relative size illusion like this easily. But this one is just plain scary. You’ve annoyed me now. Well done. Thankyou.
Anonymous said…
Ooh, ooh, ooh! YES!!!! I finally sees it!”
WTF? Do you guys even look at the ellusion before you post?
AND
Who cares if it’s Photoshopped or not? Does that make it any less of a good illusion? WTF people!?
It is funny to see how brain can be amazed!
I do not see the excitement of being the first comment. Obviously your comment has to be approved and i am sure vurdlak is not sitting at his computer waiting for the each and every comment to each one of his posts. So, chances are YOU ARE NOT FIRST TO COMMENT!!
On a lighter note, I think it is photoshopped. It still looks neat though
This is totally pointless and uncool
it’s fake… look at the weels, it all the same, just small.
made in poto shop
This is very cool, but if you look at the individual components of the cars (for example) the windows, doors, headlights in comparison. you can easily see they are the same. it’s just when you view the cars as a whole the illusion takes effect. :-) Awesome…..
Just oputting this out there this wasn’t photoshoped it was done with three different sized vehicles and they somehow managed to get all the trucks to all look the same size. if yo dont believe mee look through their windshields and out the drivers side window.
this is not an illusion. the cars are different sizes, but because they are placed in order of smallest to largest (closest to farthest) they are in fact the same length when cropped out of a 2D photo.
yes, it is phtoshopped… but who cares! that’s not the point. vurdlak already said that it’s photoshopped. the illusion is that it looks like the cars are three different sizes when in reality, the cars are all the same size.
photoshop!! but if it weren’t photoshop, it wouldn’t be an illusion, it would be a picture.
Yay mate, they really are the same!
So much the same that I think it’s a PS job….the concept is sound, but the example is not. Take a look at the wheels of each vehicle. The “spokes” are in perfect alignment for each vehicle. Not likely.
Yes, it is photoshopped, but saying that shows that you entirely missed the point. All three cars are in fact the same size (I checked with photoshop). The perspective of the image causes your brain to place a size perspective on the cars. Since objects normally appear smaller the farther away they are, the fact that they’re the same size going back makes your brain think that they’re in fact getting larger to compensate for the distance.
Ah, a TRUE optical illusion. Well done! :)
This is photoshopped. If you measure them they dont match up, and if you copy the image into a photo editor and copy the cars, you can put the first one inside the 3rd and still see the 3rd.
Same car copied thrice…do you know how I know?….they all have the same reflection even thought they are apart. Great job though.
Turn your head at a ninety degree angle, they are on a hill.
realistically, this is impossible. if 3 cars were in fact parked like this, the furthest one would indeed look smaller
If you have a laptop tilt your screen about halfway down and view it that way. They all look the same size. Pretty cool!!!