Fractally, breathing optical illusion

Trippy or nauseating? You decide! Hit the permalink to amplify the sensation. (via @coseyfannitutti and @bengoldacre)

• [dreadpiraterobert]

  It appears I don’t really need another beer…

• [Mitchell Glaser]

  My brain is melting like a pound of brie in the microwave…

• [rsplatpc]

  weird, if I stare at it and think in my head “why is this moving” it kinda stops, but when I just look it at and quickly move my eyes “it’s coming on”

• [EH]

  I think I just lost the game.

• [wrybread]

  Cool. Is there a bigger version somewhere? This must be full screen… Or maybe the world’s most obnoxious wallpaper graphic.

• [eryximachus]

  MY FREAKING BRAIN.

• [dorkus1218]

  Mmmm… apparently based on the peripheral drift illusion, championed by Akiyoshi Kitaoka http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

• [jkg]

  thank the maker for trippy peripheral vision anomalies

• [Dv Revolutionary]

  Nauseating and trippy.

• [Alvis]

  I’m fed-up with these bashful illusions that stop moving when I look straight at a spot.  I know you can move!  Quit making me work for it.

  • [Bruce M Campbell]

    Now I know where the idea came from for “Blink”.

• [xenphilos]

  Fractals always give me a headache. Both the math and the illusions based on them.

  • [technogeekagain]

    The terrifying thing about fractals is how _simple_ the math can be to produce such deep complexity.

• [UrbanUndead]

  *cues Infected Mushroom*

• [Bruce M Campbell]

  I take it that everyone is still too busy staring at it to comment. It started to melt for a second, then my brain snapped around and said “Quit that!”

• [jtegnell]

  Not much to see on the tiny iPhone screen unfortunately.

• [shutz]

  I can already see what’s going to happen: some OWS people are going to print fractals like this one on large posters and use them as protest signs, the next time they have to stand up to trigger-happy cops.  Then the cops are going to claim that the protest signs were coming right at them, and they’ll start using pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, flash grenades, and whatever blunt weapons are at their disposal to “retalliate”, claiming: “The signs, they were coming right at us!”

• [zombienietzsche]

  Delicious Mandelbrot set center!

• [zombienietzsche]

  Delicious Mandelbrot set center!

• [Genre Slur]

  Almond Bread does this to us…

• [hypersomniac]

  Yeah, I don’t like computer graphics when it comes to this stuff. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer drugs.

• [Guy Dawson]

  Is it available as wallpaper?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Computer or rumpus room?

  • [manicbassman]

    of course it’s available as a wallpaper… right click and choose “Set as desktop background”… you can also right click it and save the image to disk for safety as well

• [hypersomniac]

  JK. My CNS won’t allow anything heavier than a Dr. Pepper in.

• [Rockmetteller]

  Reminds me of this Animal Collective album cover:

• [CôMa]

  My first thought was that Boing Boing was finally admitting GIFs on its front page.
  Then it hit me.

• [Ben Burger]

  that is so cool!

• [teleny]

  I keep thinking it reminds me of Dr. Suess. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how…..

• [technogeekagain]

  Fractal op art. Why not? (Youse youngsters may be too young to remember when this kind of fluorescent eye-stretcher was popular…)

• [squeeziecat]

  not a great combo with my mild hangover. 

• [Mordicai]

  My god.  It’s full of stars.

• [John Smith]

  I’m hearing voices green and purple.

• [theSuperStar]

  Wow, super cool.

• [alex4point0]

  I used to use Fractint (http://www.fractint.org/) to generate fractals for flyers and the like on an old 386 DX33 … it doesn’t seem to like 64bit machines these days, for something more recent try http://sourceforge.net/projects/endlos/

• [nex230]

  funny fact i just found out: when you fluently resize the image it calms down and seems to stop moving (or seems to stop to seem moving to be precise)

• [Robert Cruickshank]

  Wow.
  You can “supercharge” it by looking at this first: http://www.sandlotscience.com/Aftereffects/Andrus_Spiral.htm

• [jeligula]

  Yahoo! posts this once every two months or so.

• [David Roche]

  It says “Hit the permalink to amplify the sensation”, and I did, but it doesn’t change. Still equally trippy, but I see no amplification of trippiness. 

• [funnyandspicy]

  Mind Boggling.A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality. 
  http://goo.gl/H8OgB

• [donniebnyc]

  More biggerer = more trippierer.

• [Groove Stomp]

  Interesting.  When viewed on my phone, this image had no effect whatsoever.  When viewed on my computer monitor, the effect comes out in full force.

• [oldtaku]

  Cthulhu Mandelbrot

  I must say this one hurts my eyes much less than http://www.coolopticalillusions.com/eye-tricks/optic-pictures/moving-spiral-illusion-1152.gif does.

• [kkani]

  I took it into Photoshop and replace the purple. If I matched the purple’s value with the value of the green, it stopped moving. Likewise, if I moved the hue towards green, it stopped moving. There was one dark red that moved even more than the purple.

• [Nick Gold]

  That’s some animated GIF!

  Wait, what?

• [tsa]

  It doesn’t do anything for me.

  • [yahoo-RO4SMKKIHMELF3CNQPHFK4RX2I]

    gotta look through it to see the 3D image.

    is that not what this is?

  • [Daniel]

    Are you some form of color blind perhaps?  Kkani’s tinkering seems to suggest the effect depends on relatively precise color differences.

    Wiggles like a bastard for me.  This might make a better color blindness test than the stupid circles with the numbers.

• [Coombe Mill (Fiona)]

  feels like I am looking down a test tube at some deadly bacteria!