By Vurdlak on January 19, 2010, with 147 Comments
In which direction does it spin?
Shown optical illusion just laid there on my hard disk for years. When I opened it today, I couldn’t remember why I placed it in my illusions folder in the first place? After some puzzling, finally I managed to see its visual phenomenon!
Ok, here’s what I want you to do: concentrate on the animated .gif on your right. You’ll quickly realize it represents some sort of see-through sphere, constructed of many dots rotating in one direction. Dots in front make the front face of the sphere, while “background” dots belong to sphere’s back. It’s logical they rotate in opposite directions. Now try and switch those background dots with front-face ones. Notice any change?
If you manage to visualize this, your able to change the direction in which sphere rotates. With some practice, you’ll be able to switch the direction back and forth in very short time fragments. Don’t underestimate yourselves – many individuals have difficulty seeing this type of illusions. It’s not that they’re less worthy, it’s just that their brain operates differently… Which reminded me – did you know that more than 1/3 of all people who went to see Avatar in 3D couldn’t see the image in 3D?
There are many optical illusions of this type available; one of the more popular being Spinning Dancer Optical Illusion. Your best shot of finding more, would be browsing through our Animations category.
(70 votes)
I also see it splitting in the middle – going forwards and backwards.
omg that’s so freaking cool. i love it!
this is great… at first I didn’t see it rotating the other way, but as I started to read the text, I saw from the corner of my eye, that it was already moving in the other direction :D It’s actually really easy to switch in the end :D
I can make it spin both ways at the same time if I try hard enough. Weird and Cool!
I like it… But when it’s really 3D, shouldn’t the pixels in the back be smaller than the ones up in front? Now it just seems like it’s a bunch of pixels sliding left to right and back…
So.. in my opinion there is no rotation at all :P
2 moving next t oeachother in the opposite direction of the other
Same as Lorelei…..I see each half of the sphere rotating opposite each other. Freak me out!!
Even though you can see it rotating in both directions if you wanted to, there’s only one correct direction, IMO. You can judge by the elevation of the dots. The closer they get to the center of the sphere, the farther they get to the viewer. And of course vice-versa.
That is awesome :)
goes to the right then i turn away and look back and its going the other way what the >>>
I also can make this go both ways at the same time
i see it! awesome..i see it going forwards & backwards also..once i see that then i can watch it go either direction
Is it odd that I can see two spheres merging in the center at the same time?, if i chose i can follow one and blur out the other.
Ridiculous!
Since it’s a flat image with the poles at top and bottom, you can see it spin in either direction if you force your perspective. However, I tend to see it rotate west to east because that’s the way I’m used to thinking about the Earth (and most other planets) rotating.
Me Too! (two half spheres rotating in opposite directions)
OK this one is a good one :) well done
cool
I see 3 kinds of motion. One is a sphere rotating clockwise. Two is a sphere rotating counter clockwise. Three is two halves of a sphere (split from top to bottom) rotating in opposite directions.
Very good, the simple ones like this are the best! I can make it change direction but also so that both travel across the foreground simultaniously in opposite directions, crossing over to do the same in the background!
trippy!!!!!
I see it splitting too!!
this is awesome!!!!! going around in both directions and back and forth into the middle and out lol so cooollll!!!!!
You serious about the Avatar movie? O_o It looked pretty 3-D to me.
It naturally rotates right to left for me, but I can make it switch with some effort. Very cool effect.
wow, coooooooollll
nice observation lorelei!
Well, I could perfectly watch Avatar in 3d, but still can’t train my eyes to see that MM’s image.
I have a hard time seeing these types of illusions, but if I don’t focus on it directly, I see the rotational change.
Actualy, i saw what you said, and, seeying for some minutes, I can see too another fx…. two halfs of a sphere encountering each other in the center and going to opposite direction..
Verrrryyy Coool!
Thanks.
Wow! I just managed to do something even cooler! I saw two half spheres spinning in opposite directions. Try it!
i see it in 3 different views; moving left, moving right or two parts going in two different directions merging into each other
oops srry for the duplicate comments
That’s interesting. I had it rotating like a figure-eight after a couple of attempts.
I can only see it spinning from left to right.
To me, it looks like a bunch of dots going back and forth.
I love these ones – so simple, but so effective. It took a good long look and some intense concentration to get it to change directions, but it did. Once I got it happening, I noticed there are a couple of points in the rotation where it is easier to switch than others.
Took me about 10 seconds to see what you were talking about. What’s really crazy is that after another 10-15 seconds it appeared to me that the illusion was spinning in two different directions simultaneously. In other words, it appeared that from the center front of the sphere the dots were flowing away from each other.
as a pro illousionist i would say it isnt moving left or right, its uni not girl, boy, left, right so still! trust me im a pro
OMG… I love this illusion… thats so sick!
Well, any transparent object (as in, completely transparent, besides some not-overlaying or same-color dots or faces) in a 2D medium (such as your computer screen) will have this effect. It is still pretty cool tho.
This is pretty cool. I can change it almost instantaneously now.
What I find interesting is that little tidbit about Avatar. I didn’t know people had trouble seeing it in 3D or just plain couldn’t see it in 3D. Odd… I wonder why?
ok, here’s a challenge:
see if you can visualise it as what it truly is: two dimensional dots moving backwards and forwards in a two dimensional plane
:)
Cool!!! I now able to see it spinning anyway I want!!!
I have figurd it out!!! There are 2 illusions actually. The illusion tht it onlii spins in one direction and the second of it being a 3D sphere at all!! Its not a sphere its a circle!! Watch as the individual pixels go from right to left continuosly….giving this circle the illusion of being a sphere and spinning in both directions!! Yay i figured it out all by myself!! If it was really 3D pixels in the bak would be smaller and it would have no choice but to go in one direction or the illusion is ruined!
At first, I saw it one way then the other accidentally. It took me awhile to do it on purpose.
Also, I couldn’t see the 3D on Journey to the Center of the Earth when I rented it so now, I am afraid to see Avatar because I don’t want to waste the money.
I can see 3D paintings that use the glasses and I could see the 3D movies on the IMax screens though.
That bit about the Avatar film sounds to me like something from a tabloid newspaper, making over-the-top claims based on little evidence.
With a Magic Eye/Stereogram, you need to be able to focus each eye on two separate points on the same image, which can be tricky and is why some people can’t view them. With 3D glasses, each eye sees a completely different image because the lenses are polarised. So if you can’t see the 3D system at work in Avatar, you would have no depth perception at all in normal life.
Damnit.
I had it moving to the left from when I first saw it, then after ten minutes it started moving to the right!
Othim.
I forgot to add that I was able to see the two half spheres as well. Pretty cool illusion.
Its not spinning its just the dots moving
Pretty cool
Yupp,Saw all 5 versions:
ball, rotating left to right,
ball rotating right to left,
two hemispheres counterrotating,
two hemispheres counterrotating the other way
and 2D dots going back and forth.
Powerful ;)
wow. this is really cool. it takes me a second or two to change the direction, but its still awesome.
After awhile I just see it as a 2-D picture with dots moving back and forth…which I assume is what it really is…
You can change the direction of the sphere and you can also see the two halves moving in opposite directions
Yep Sammy, our brain is totally programmed to interpret sinusoidal movement as 3d…
thank you <3
It all depends on which dots you see first – the ones going right or the ones going left. Your mind will then give you the illusion that these ‘two dimensional dots’ are actually a rotating sphere
i had to go cross eyed for it to work lol
way cool. at first glance, i saw it spinning to the right, then it changed according to the perspective i was trying to see.
One of my favorites. I love the interactive ability to stop the spin and start it in the direction you choose.
Try letting your eyes go as you would with 3D art.
Very fun!
Oh man.
this is my favorite yet. TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
@ms.wow
What? Your comment makes no sense.
I can see it in 4 views, clockwise, counter clockwise, both at the same time (trippy) and I can see sammys 2d view, it looks like they bounce off the walls and come back to the center. I love this illusion! 5 stars.
mmmm…. what i saw was interesting… first i saw it rotating with the front to the right, then i saw it going to the left and fuse with two halfs going in two different ways and then i saw a circle with a bunch of dots while the dots went from one corner to the other, crashing as if making a nice explosive setting, it was nice
ok but if you look at it as if the two sets of dots are only halves that are going different ways and they PASS each other every spin then it doesn’t even look like it’s spinning all together. just as two separate pieces
you can look at this three different ways
1. moving to the left
2. moving to the right
3. You can see that both sides of the sphere actually move both ways at the same time
wow i get it, i can see both directions ;)
OK looks great at first until you realise that it’s just 2 half-globes rotation each way round.
Don’t seem to see the world in 3D anyway, so I didn’t notice too much during the movie.
Nice illusion. I managed to to see both directions and the splitted view
Left!
as simple as that!
Very nice illusion! First I thought that it is a video where the orb periodically changes direction. But it is actually controllable. When there is that big pile up of dots in the middle, you just have to concentrate to the dots that are going to the direction you want and follow them for a while.
Truly amazing…love all the illusions so far.
i cant do the whole 3d thing because the vision in my eyes is different, my left eye is about twice as bad vision as my right so when i put on 3d glasses my brain just cant handle it and i have to take them off, maybe at least some of the 1/3 that cant see the 3d version have a similiar oddity with vision. awesome illusion by the way.
crazily, i accidentally saw it splitting in the middle and both semi-circles rotating independently. i’ve gotten them to rotate independently in the same direction and in opposing directions, and then also what it’s supposed to do… i’m intrigued by this image; very curious…
OMFG i cant believe it… i got it to work … these almost never work for me!Im so impressed with myself… then i wierded myself when 2 parts started going opposite directions…
i left it for a few minutes and decided to come back… now i can make it change directioons at will… i want it ti go both ways though… that was cool!
That’s the way I first saw it. Two semi (Half) spheres spinning in opposite directions. It almost looked like the two collided and past through each other and came around again. Then I could make it spin in either direction. Getting that first effect is a little more difficult, now that I made it spin in opposite directions. Pretty cool! I guess the 60′s did completely wear off.
Took me a while to make it change direction but was finally able to do it.. Pretty cool.
Damn cool… I can see all 3 directions!!