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Leaning Tower Illusion
The leaning tower illusion won the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest 2007 first prize. A simple illusion but strikingly novel. The two photos of the leaning tower of pisa are the same but one has the impression that the right side leans more.
Source: Neural Correlate
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December 13th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Not that it would make much of a difference that I can tell, but those images are NOT identical. The tower on the left is taller by 1 pixel as I can tell. If you paste one image on top of the other using a blending using a difference mode, you can clearly find a line near the first set of arches that is different. The same effect coule have been demonstrated by actually using the same picture in the page source… this was just sloppy and calls into question if the result is valid or not.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
The Leaning Tower pictures are NOT identical. Look at the arches along the very bottom of the frame. The pictures were either taken with a stereoscopic camera or were taken consecutively with slight camera movement. Defocus your eyes to merge the two images into a third image in the center and you will see a strong illusion of depth. If the images were identical the illusion would be much less. Defocus further to put the images slightly out of register, and you will see the differences in angle between features such as columns. This will be easier to spot with features closer to the camera.
September 12th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Ryan & Jeff are confused, PICTURES ARE 100% IDENTICAL!! If you put one tower’s pic above the others pic then the illusion disappears (& you’ll see that they’re identical!). Also, if you switch the towers around, the new tower on the right will look like it’s leaning more, the pics have to be next to each other for the illusion to appear.
If you still don’t believe me, just copy either of the towers pics above and open up that same image twice and put them next to each other… viola.
December 17th, 2009 at 6:54 am
No Loslyn, you are mistaken. Without getting too elaborate I will show you how they are not 100% identical. Look at the extreme lower right corner. Count the number of pixels on the bottom-most line on your screen from the edge of the frame to the edge of the building. it differs in the two pictures. Look at the tops of the arches along the bottom of the frame. They are clearly not the same distance from the bottom of the frame.
That doesn’t mean you can’t get the “one is leaning more” illusion by putting copies of one or the other next to each other, only that these two images are not identical.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:30 am
no actually jeff ur ignorent. why dont u try the idea givin instead of arguin. i did and the pic are identical.