If you, having seen this picture, understand that your life will never be the same again, then you understand me. Quite a while ago, more than two and a half years ago, quite by chance I saw this picture on the Internet (it seems on ffffound ), and the toggle switch clicked in my head. The irreversible process was launched.

The usual course of everyday events has ceased to reassure its completeness. All that once filled my life with meaning became only a pale background for a swollen thought that permanently consumes the resources of my brain; secondary garbage before the question, which at that time was the center of my existence - “How? What is it like to look at such a design? What will a person see? ”(I hope no one noticed that there are three questions here). I definitely wanted to assemble this construct and find out the answer to the question.


')
Years passed, I got the second diploma and graduated from the university. The stern matan, the geometry of Lobachevsky and other abstruse things made me less susceptible to such images, the psyche stabilized (hopefully). I became acquainted with the books of Oliver Sachs, where amazing stories were told, including the perception and interpretation of visual information by the brain (say, the story of a boy who was blind from birth, who had already acquired his eyesight due to the operation).

In addition, I learned that, of course, long before me, smart people had thought of building such constructions, using them to study the brain's reaction to optical illusions and even give a clever scientific name - pseudoscope (and also an invertoscopic and my next dream - stereo branch ).


There were all kinds of communities, articles with mathematical calculations , notes with impressions of use , online stores , circles for interests and parties of different degrees of zadrotstvo , video without SMS and registration , crushed stone fittings cheap Moscow excuse me, I felt like a work-mate.

Finally, the magic of mystery and uncertainty bulldozer demolished the discovery of such a resource as tiniy and search feature for images on Google . IMG . With the help of these services, I found out the source of that primary image. As it turned out, long before me, the path was trodden by Anatoly Zenkov , a cool designer, as can be judged by his channel, Vimeo. There were video testing and flickr. Gallery with the process of creating a pseudoscope.

The end of the story?

It would seem that this can be the end of the story, the universe taught me a lesson: “Laurels of the pioneer are busy, everything has already been invented before you, seeming to you a great insight only a moment to no one needs a bicycle invention, this world is harsh and uncompromising, and there is no place for your rotten ideas " .

But for some reason the hunt is not discouraged. The desire did not die, it was still warming, although it was diminished. During the incubation period, the catalyst was a year spent in prisons under the name of the RF Armed Forces, where you do what they say to you, from what you find yourself. Screwdriver? Hacksaw? Ha! I had to ask the officers for a week in the store to buy a bolt for my money; and if self-tapping screws were necessary, they were twisted in other places, with the hope that nothing would collapse. So the recent acquisition of freedom has certainly contributed to the transition from idea to action.

Another motive that triggered the process of creation is the desire to get rid of the idea, so that it finds a way out, not to pursue and not choke me, not to be taken prisoner , as Oleg Pashchenko wrote about this (illustration below).


Anyway, I had some free time, and I decided to build my own mirror pseudo-cop.

Paper-virtual stage

It all started with the calculations on a piece of paper. Not tensor calculus, of course, but I had to suffer with trigonometry.


The overall magnitude of disasters can be estimated from the photo:


After this tedious stage, the desire was born to automate the calculation of the coordinates of the mirrors. First, there are quite a few variable input parameters (the angle of the mirrors, the distance between the eyes, their viewing angle, etc.). Secondly, I was already planning to show my brainchild to the world and decided to make it easier for those interested to create the structure.

As a result, I quickly blinded a flash (sorry) program in which everyone can calculate all sizes for themselves. The option of setting on which I built, put in the program by default.


I think there is no need to explain each slider. Just mention about the gaps. All calculations were carried out taking into account the “sterile” configuration, i.e. mirrors with zero thickness, everything falls millimeter to millimeter. In life, everything goes not so smoothly - there is a gap, there is a discrepancy, the curvature of the hands exceeds the permissible norms, etc. Mirrors, on the other hand, have a non-zero thickness, which imposes an error: when the beam is incident on the reflecting surface at an angle different from the direct one, the effective surface of the mirror is less than the real one, since from the end of the mirror the beam will not pass normally. On the diagram, this can be considered (there is still no reflection of the fact of the ray of light on the border):


So I left a centimeter of a gap. If anyone is interested in digging, here are the sources . Written in AS3, but without classes (sorry again) and this whole OOP party, stupid and simple-minded code.

Well, the dimensions are obtained, you can start a large construction site. Finally, I run the dimensions through cinema4d, just to calm it down.

Physical stage

Now from the paper-virtual world we return to the real world.
We think over the physical implementation of the drawings - materials, fixtures, color. After this, a raid on shops is made - first OBI, then Leroy Merlin.

As a result of glamorous shopping (I very organically wandered around shopping centers with building materials, looking in fashionable shops) we have:

• 4 mirrors 300 mm high and 65, 130, 200 and 265 mm wide, respectively. If you are afraid to wake up in yourself the mighty power of hand-made mirror cutting - in Leroy Merlin everything will be cut, although for good money like that - 90 rubles. in one cut. As a result, cutting cost more than the mirrors themselves.
• 4 pieces of plywood 7-layer thickness of 1 cm (I did not find thinner):
  300 × 300mm - 2 pcs. (sides)
  550 × 300mm - 2 pcs. (up and down).
  Similarly, in order not to turn an apartment into a sawmill, then finding sawdust in the most unexpected places for a couple of years, you can use the free plywood cutting service in OBI.
• Metal corners. Planned plastic, but in OBI there were none. Two formats: wide (three meters), for fastening the frame of the box and attaching the back side of the mirrors to the frame; and narrow (two meter), for attaching the reflective side of the mirrors to the frame.
• Hacksaw and steel barrels for drinking corners.
• Glue in copious amounts for the corners. I scored all - the usual moment, supermoment (as a result, he only used it), epoxy moment. The box itself could, of course, be elegantly planted on screws, but I really wanted to smell more glue. Damn, did I say that out loud?
• I decided to choose the color scheme as in the Zenkov variant. For this, black enamel (for viscera) and yellow (for exterior trim) with rollers and tassels was purchased. Plus a yellow paint in a can (not needed) and a black marker for coloring the narrow corners that were in the store only in white.

After purchasing the materials, I calculated everything in more detail in the vector editor, taking into account the size of the corners, the thickness of the plywood and mirrors, so that nothing overlaps. On the basis of these data I specify the coordinates.


We start with drawing the drawings on the top and bottom panels. Here it is necessary to be exact, especially it concerns the correspondence of the upper and lower panels - any mismatch will lead to a tilt of the mirror. In parallel, we paint the backs of the mirrors in black.


On the basis of refined drawings, we cut corners - to connect mirrors with panels and panels with each other.


Before gluing the white corners I paint over with a black marker. We do not fix the corners with glue to the mirrors, to the panels.


Then everything is glued to the bottom panel according to the markup on it.


We paint all the insides with black (after complete assembly of the structure, it will be inconvenient to climb with a brush / roller between the mirrors). At that moment I decided to refuse from the top panel lining, relying on the perpendicularity of the corners of the mirror (as it turned out later, in vain).


Install the top cover.


A jamb is immediately detected due to the incorrect order of gluing the corners (more on this at the end) - the upper corner is not tight to the frame. We'll have to otkovyrivat corner and stick separately.


^hello

It remains to paint the outside. We seal the cavity with paper.


Cover the black base.


Then in two layers of yellow paint. Done!

Total

Maybe the first pancake did not come out lumpy, but the implementation is far from ideal (errors and possible improvements I will describe below).


As for the answer to the same question - What is it?

I will quote Zenkov:

“As it turned out, for me this device is“ not working. ” Due to poor vision, I had a feeling that I was just looking with one eye. However, having tested the device with other people, a lot of interesting things turned out. For example, it is almost impossible to focus on nearby objects. For distant objects, volume is lost and they become flat. Plus, the understanding of the distance to objects is lost, to the point that some distant objects are literally visible in front of their neighbors. Many people compared the effect with 2D games, where the depth of the stage is simulated due to the difference in the displacement of layers, but they noted that this looks like an unfinished game. ”

Bugs and Tips

During the work, I made mistakes, mainly due to the lack of patience and engineering experience (* pafosmodon * well, more precisely, the experience of implementing my engineering developments, and I did the model of the gamma-radiation detector at GEANT4 at one time * pafosmodod *), and also because of laziness. I didn’t want to think anymore, I wanted to do, do, do to the bitter end, not including the brain. Therefore, I planned something wrong, somewhere I mowed during the implementation, changed my mind in the middle of the process, etc.

In general, looking back, what I would do differently:

1. The size. I would still do less. I have a non-art art workshop in the attic of an old brick house in the center of Moscow, and there isn’t much space for such a thing. On the cabinet only if you throw.
2. The material of the panels. I chose plywood simply on the principle of least resistance (it was in OBI, and it was too lazy to make extra trips to the shops). Cons - heaviness, knots, texture (it is difficult to paint, but the dust collects particularly well, visually and to the touch I would like something smooth). The strength of 7-ply plywood is not needed here - in fact, it is only necessary that the structure does not bend under its own weight. If you show perseverance and the desire to drive around the shops, I am sure that you could find a suitable thin, light and durable material from some polycarbonate or similar to the tags.
3. Still, I would find black narrow corners. Of course, I repainted my white with a black marker, but from the side of the mirror it will not work out (glue dissolves the paint and refuses to sit on the painted side). As was already seen in the diagram above, the reflecting surface of the mirror is protected by a layer of glass, because of this white stripes from the corners are visible in the reflection. Much spoils the look.
4. Another gluing sequence. I would probably first glue the corners to the frame above and below according to the drawings, and then I would stick mirrors to them. Accuracy would increase. And then the slightest miscalculation, the tilt of the mirror - and the effect of the pseudoscope is lost.
5. I would read on the Internet about the basics of painting work, so as not to learn everything, so to speak, on the air. Behind the brackets of the story, I left many of my fakaps in this area, which I even feel ashamed to recall.
6. Slits Several holes in the design have no functional use. You can either initially extend the mirrors to close them, or, if already after assembly, you can close them with some sheet of black plastic. And visually it will be better, and the effect of the pseudodop is stronger, since eye will not be distracted by extraneous images

Well, a couple of tips:

1. It would be nice to first make sure that it works for you. It is clear from Zenkov’s quotation above that not all are capable of evaluating the effect of a pseudoscope. If you have vision problems, consider whether you end up flying.
2. Take care of your mirrors. They must be perfectly clean. Any scratch, stain or even a speck of dust breaks the whole effect - the brain understands that it is being tried to fool it.

And finally, I apologize for the scholarship, the general atmosphere of posturing and the pouring out of the facts of the biography that are unnecessary for the reader. I barely stopped myself when I already wanted to introduce you to my family.