Create and Prove the Most Perplexing Illusion EVER!

This is one the best visual illusions of all time. Many online viewers have cried "FAKE" regarding the video. Feel free to print out the PDFs (step 5) and see for yourself that this is, in fact, REAL! Are these two tabletops different in size or not? Covered in this instructable are the simple household materials you'll need to create the illusion and the method for proving it to any naysayers (trust me..you will most definitely need to show proof!)

Included below is a short video of the process and its astounding results. When you watch it, you literally may not believe your eyes:

Step 1 Materials Needed

The following household items are needed:

1) One sheet of 8.5"x11" paper

2) Another sheet of paper at least 5"x6" in size

3) Black pen

4) Brown crayon or colored pencil

5) Orange crayon or colored pencil (any color lighter than brown will work fine)

6) Ruler

7) Scissors

8) Red Magic Marker

Comments

[yoshi1]

http://spectacular-illusions.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html

These aren't paper illusions but they are still awesome!
Make sure you see the cat!

[electrick]

HEY!!! You stole that from Discover Magazine's (now deceased) NeuroQuest section!

[greeenpro]

I've never even read Discover Magazine. I don't take credit for coming up with this idea though. All credit for the idea of this brilliant illusion goes to Roger Shepard. He is famous for his original version of this one and many other popular optical illusions. That man is the Einstein of optical illusions.

I just wanted to re-create this for fun. Also, I could not believe my eyes when I first saw it, so I had to draw it out to make sure it was true.

[kill1234]

cool!

[Nextraker]

You fooled my eyes, Awesome

[greeenpro]

Feel free to print out the PDFs. If you do, you'll see that I colored outside the lines of the tables a little bit....shame, shame :)

[instructors]

Nobody's perfect, great Instructable by the way! I fooled my dad with it, and im going to try it out at school :)

[greeenpro]

Oh, excellent. Thanks for the comment!

[stevenscorsese]

i've watched the vid about 5 times and am still scratching my head - awesome

[greeenpro]

Thanks. Our eyes are trained not to believe a sight like this :)

[flagler]

I can see where mowdish is coming from. When seen live though, this truly is amazing. Thanks for posting! Great video too!

[greeenpro]

Glad to hear! The video has been quite controversial. :-)

[sorinescu]

That's cool, is really interesting

[brandom741]

really good illusion

[greeenpro]

Thanks for commenting!

[mowdish]

It is a good illusion, but you it would be harder to repeat this live. By using the really low camera angle you've significantly exaggerated the effect of perspective in the drawing. One can see this by measuring the length in pixels for each surface's edges. The surface is Top: 74 Bottom: 91 Left: 163 Right:152 and the right surface is Top: 159 Bottom:172 Left: 81 Right:91

[greeenpro]

Thanks. Naturally there is a difference in perpective when viewing the video or looking at the pictures. If you print out the 2 PDFs I've added in Step 5, you can repeat this live and see how striking it is. I scanned the actual drawing (used both in the video and in the pictures) so that anyone can see it live for themselves. Ahhh..technology. Thank you for viewing and commenting.

[ventsi]

great one

[gagfilms]

Very cool! :)

[greeenpro]

thank you