Necker Challenge
Are you up for a fun challenge?
This one is not for the easily frightened. If you are up for it and make it all the way to the end, please post your image and I'll tell you the secret.
Here are the steps if you wanna try.
1.) go to any IM with nothing.
2.) scroll half way down page,
enter size: 75x25;
format= XC;
Meta: silver
go up and click VIEW
3.) go to TRANSFORM
parameter box enter: 33% x 33%
choose SHEAR
gravity=NorthWest
checkmark Reset page geometry
OUTPUT: gif,
copy the URL, but don't transload the image yet.
4.) click BACK button on keyboard ONCE and click on INPUT.
Scroll back to bottom and change Meta: #444444
that's all you need to change.
Click View.
5.) click on COMPOSITE and enter your saved URL.
Leave everything else as is (center, srcover etc.)
click composite.
click OUTPUT (.gif) and copy URL, but don't transload yet.
Make sure your width and height is still 75x25
6.) hit back button again and click on INPUT.
Scroll back to bottom and leave everything as is, except change height to 50.
Size= 75x50
click on VIEW.
7.) COMPOSITE: change Geometry from center to SOUTH and enter your saved URL.
8.) TRANSFORM
Flip
click on transform.
9.)Use Paint to change color of the parallelogram (lighter color part).
Fuzz: 7777
REPLACE
COLOR
Fill Color: #777777
Border Color: none
click on lighter color in the image.
10.) COMPOSITE leave everthing as is and click composite (south).
OUTPUT: gif;
Copy URL, but don't transload it yet.
11.) back button, click INPUT.
Scroll back to bottom and this time change the width to double.
size= 150x50 everything else stays the same.
12.) COMPOSITE: Gravity: EAST enter your saved URL; click on composite.
ALMOST DONE LOL!
13.) TRANSFORM: choose FLIP
14.) TRANSFORM choose FLOP
15.) COMPOSITE leave everything as is. click composite.
16.) RESIZE
resize image back to original size of 75x25 by choosing HALF SIZE.
FINAL:
OUTPUT gif or .jpg
Optimize it further if your like and finally TRANSLOAD it.
DONE! You did it! :-)
image resized double for visuals
One of the clues to this was already in the subject line.
The Necker cube is an optical illusion first published as a rhomboid (cube) in 1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker.
The secret to this illusion is that the cubic shape it produces when tiled, appears to simultanously "protrude from" and "intrude into" the page, depending on your perspective.
This type of tiling was used in ancient times also. Some floors in Italy/Pompeii had beautiful mosaics in that pattern.
The most stunning version of this in modern times, that I've seen for myself, is in the lobby floor of the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The stunning lobby floor of the Venetian
CloseUp of floor:
There are a lot of variations to this Necker tessallation cube, but the principal always remains the same.
At ImageMagick, the same image would normally be produced by simply drawing the parallelogram lines and coloring/shading the opposites.
The posted way was just too tempting to show that Shear can be used to quickly produce parallelograms.
Here are some visuals of mine to show different perspectives:
Horizontal tile Necker in grayscale:
Vertical in grayscale:
Protrude from OR Intrude into perspective:
Necker cube tiled to show its magic:
Different Rhombic cubes
Cube shaded to be used as a mask or tiled background:
Colored and textured examples of Protrude/Intrude. Do you see a piece missing of the whole big cube OR do you see a little cube nested inside two walls?
THE SECRET of our cube challenge lies in tiling the background.
You can do that by going to:
Enter the URL
choose "tile as background"
click VIEW.
Have fun.
Instructions by BeeDiana @ August, 2011
archived by Deanna with permission from Bee Diana
Thank you Diana