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Christmas crafts: How to make your own amazing optical illusion

In anamorphic illusions, the image appears distorted until viewed from the one vantage point at which it resolves into a perfect three-dimensional projection. Follow our guide to create your own – and don't forget to share it!

By Daniel Cossins

16 December 2020

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

How it works

In one sense, getting this to work could hardly be simpler. Just prop (or stick) the right-hand page of the centrefold against a wall so it is at 90 degrees to the left-hand page, which should be on a flat, horizontal surface. Then step away and adjust your standing position until the distorted image appears perfectly in 3D (see above).

Yet, in another sense, how this works is actually pretty complicated. Like any visual illusion, anamorphic illusions such as this one trick your brain by taking advantage of the way that we stitch together reality from…

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