Magic Eye optical illusions have been around since the mid 90s. Think of the fun you had staring at the image, only to pull back to see the hidden picture within the pattern. Recently, these optical illusions are making a comeback, thanks to actress Blake Lively.

She is currently promoting her new film, The Shallows. Excited about the film and hoping to get the word out, Lively posted a custom made optical illusion on her Instagram account. Apparently, this film has some critics comparing it to Steven Spielbergs Jaws. Revealing what the image is would give away the fun surprise. Some find the picture easier to see if they print out the image. Other people have had no trouble viewing it on the computer screen. Take a look and see if you can figure out the message.

Having a little trouble? Here is a tip to get you started. Begin by looking at the image closely.

Stare into it until your eyes become out of focus and almost crossed. Keep staring while slowly backing away from the image. As you gain distance the picture should appear right in front of you. Thousands of people have been able to view the illusion and gain a glimpse into the new film. If you are not able to see it, no need to worry. The film will be out soon, and you can go see what all of the hype is about.

’90s fond memories typically focuses around the important things we provided for enjoyable: From in-line skating, to viewing Disney motion pictures on VHS, to rewording our AOL chat profiles, those people who matured throughout the years certainly understood how to keep ourselves captivated. One activity that still captures my attention? Determining how Magic Eye photos work. You understand what I indicate: Those images that look sort of like a random collection of dots … up until you take a look at them in simply the proper way, at which point they end up being a 3D dolphin or whatever. Those things. There was no higher source of pride than having the ability to poke your good friends and shout, “I see it!” prior to everyone else.

Undoubtedly I have actually constantly had the hardest time really seeing these things, which led me to question where Magic Eye photos originate from in the very first location. I understand they’re visual fallacies, and I understand they make us see 3D images where there are really just 2D images, however I’m uncertain why or how they work. So, I did some digging to see what I might learn– and it ends up the history of about Magic Eye images and the description behind how they work is more interesting than I ever believed.

Technically called “autostereograms,” Magic Eye images ended up being popular in 1959, when psychologist Bela Julesz created them. His objective? To analyze how individuals can see in 3D. He utilized a quite standard approach in building his autostereograms: Generally, he utilized developed one picture of uniform, arbitrarily positioned dots. Then, he had actually circle one location of the dots and shift that location a little in the 2nd image. The concept is that if somebody sees the 2 images side by side, they view a “drifting” circle hovering above the moved dots, offering it a 3D result, despite the fact that there’s no depth in either image.

This finding alone practically blew individuals’s minds for the next twenty years; then among Julesz’s trainees, Chris Tyler, in addition to computer system developer Maureen Clarke, found something even cooler in 1979: You can make autostereograms with a computer system. After that, lo and behold, in the nick of time for us ’90s kids to flip out over them, engineer Tom Baccei, 3D artist Cheri Smith, and developer Bob Salitsky produced Magic Eye in 1991, developing on the research study that came prior to them.