Optical Illusions ProjectBy: Jacob Nixon, Darsh Patel, Luke Babilon, and

Conner Steenrod

Background: Visual Acuity and its uses in the US military

Visual acuity is the sharpness of one’s vision, measured by the ability to recognize letters, numbers, or patterns from a certain, standard distance. The clearness and acuteness of vision is determined by optical and neural factors such as the retina and interpretive abilities of the brain.

Background: Visual Acuity and its uses in the US military

Visual acuity tells how good someone’s eyesight is by measuring how well someone can discern an optotype (a letter or ring with a cut-out) from 20 feet. A person with 20/20 vision has normal vision: they see an image normally from 20 feet away. A person with 20/40 vision has bad vision (they see an image that a person with 20/20 would see from 40 feet away) while a person with 20/10 vision has extremely good vision (they see an image that a person with 20/20 vision would see from 10 feet away).

Background: Visual Acuity and its uses in the US military

Testing acuity can involve looking at a poster with different letters, shapes, dots, and lines from a certain distance away (20 feet). Another way to test a person’s acuity is by looking at an optical illusion and seeing how they describe it.

The military uses visual acuity and optical illusions to create aircraft that camouflage in sky. The military also trains soldiers to be able to identify camouflaged aircraft and landmines and trains pilots to identify far-off or camouflaged ships and aircraft that may be ready to attack.

Why our designs are the best

Our designs incorporate certain colors and patterns that cause the brain to send messages to the eyes that are different than what the eyes are actually seeing, which confuses the brain. These messages include the organization of the brain to make something meaningful, the perception of depth and motion, color and brightness constancy, and object consistencies. Using our brains need to making something that doesn’t make sense logical, optical illusions - such as our’s - can effectively trick the untrained eye into seeing something that may not actually be there.

Optical Illusion #1How many cubes are in the picture?

How about now?

Our first optical illusion takes advantage of the brains need to create depth and have a meaningful light source. We chose two contrasting colors - black and white - and grey to create the effect of depth on a 2-D surface. We also tessellated black squares, grey parallelograms, and white parallelograms by translating them to form hexagons, that were, themselves, translated. This shapes create the illusion of cubes (depth) on paper. This design tests visual acuity because it tests to see if you can see the changing number of cubes. If your brain didn’t create the false perception of depth, it would simply look like a tessellation. It also tests your brains ability to change perspective. This is important in the military because as objects get closer or farther, a soldier may need to change his perspective quickly so that they can focus on what is going in front of them and avoid injury (for example changing perspective from riflemen in the distance to one that has charged in front of you).

Optical Illusion #1 Explanation

Optical Illusion #2

Optical Illusion #2 Explanation

This illusion takes advantage of the brain’s depth perspective. The lines are actually equal in height, but to the average eye the one on the right looks taller. This is because of the background. The lines in the background make it look like you are looking at the picture at a angle, and the one on the right is farther away. Take the lines away, and you have two parallel lines of the same height and width. This could help the army in visual acuity testing and help give soldiers the opportunity to see through depth illusions and be able to master the art of hiding enemy spotting. The colors used were black and white (they are contrasting colors that help create the mirage of depth) and the design includes two boxes (one was translated to the spot of another), slanted lines that gradually get bigger (dilation), and two end lines that are also dilations. The shapes help create a sense of depth and distance.

Optical Illusion #3

Optical Illusion #3 Explanation

This design uses depth and perspective to create two distinct figures that have different fronts. The colors used here were black and white - contrasting colors that help create depth - and the rectangles and parallelograms were translated to make the illusion of a rectangular prism. We chose these colors (specifically the empty rectangles) and design because when you focus on one particular rectangle (the top or bottom) the image “shifts” and the one you are looking at becomes the front. This can be used to test a person’s visual acuity by seeing how they are able to change perspectives. It can also train a soldier’s ability to determine how an object is angled and which way it will move.

Optical Illusion #4

Are the linesbent, slanted,or rounded, or arethe sizeschanging? Is there any movement?

Optical Illusion #4: Explanation

Our fourth optical illusion uses the fact that although the brain is fast but it can not process a complex image fast enough therefore creating confusion. We chose black and white, two colors that contrast, which causes light to irradiate from the black lines to the white trapezoids. The shapes (trapezoids that were glide reflected and translated to form columns of trapezoids) create the illusion of the lines being bent and the trapezoids moving because of how they are staggered . The use of congruent shapes and contrasting colors (irradiation) causes the lighter objects to appear larger. As you focus on one set of trapezoids, the others appear smaller, so as you readjust your perspective, the “large” column appears to move, thus you identify motion in the trapezoids and bending of the lines. This can help train soldier’s visual acuity and ability to determine how an object is moving and if it is moving at all.

Optical Illusion #5

Is the circle going in orcoming out?

Optical Illusion #5: Explanation

Our fifth illusion manipulates the brain’s need to create depth using contrasting colors. The contrasting colors - black and yellow - creates the illusion of depth. We also used dilating circles to further play on the creation of an illusive depth (they make it appear like the 3-D image is going further away from you or coming towards you and tapering to a point). Visual acuity is important here because depending on how far away you are and how you look at this, you will see something different each time. It can also train military soldiers to be able to tell what direction an object is moving under the most confusing of situations.

Optical Illusion #6

Which inner circle isbigger?

Optical Illusion #6 Explanation

On our sixth and last illusion, we used a very simple concept and turned it into a “mind twister.” We used two colors: red and yellow; red is put on a plain yellow background, which helps create a difference in size between the centers because there are no lines or other objects to give away the equality. The reason we chose this image is because it incorporates dilations which can be very powerful to trick the eye when used right and rotations of larger/smaller objects that bolster the size of the inner circles. By using the dilations to change the size of the outer hexagons, we controlled the brain’s need to make something logical - since smaller hexagons are surrounding one hexagon and bigger ones the other, the former appears to be larger than the latter, similar to how a person looks huge compared to an ant but tiny compared to a building. This can help test and train visual acuity by seeing if the viewer can see the equality of the two hexagons. With this, a soldier could pick out the size of an object even if it surrounded by smaller or larger objects.

How our designs can be incorporated into the military

Our designs can be used by the military in two ways. The first is to use for training soldiers to be able to spot and eliminate similar illusions and to test how well they can see illusions from a certain distance away. This could help soldiers find landmines, camouflaged planes or ships, or find possible traps in the environment around them. The second is to use them on our planes and ships to camouflage them, or we can make dummy planes that are distracting enough to take the enemy’s attention of the real plane or ship. For example, if a dummy plane was positioned right it could make it appear as though the real plane were moving closer or further away. These reasons are why our designs should be used by the military.