Autostereograms (Magic Eye Pictures)

Autostereograms became suddenly very popular in 1994, some fifteen years after they had been invented by Tyler and Clarke. If you can read German, here is a little story about Gandalf and two Hobbits finding the hidden gate in a wall and thereby discovering the secrets of autostereograms:

M. Simeth and R. Sander: Mathematische Unterhaltungen: Der kleine Hobbit und das Autostereogramm. Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Jan., 10-15 (1995)

A shorter version of this article also appeared in:

Simeth, M., & Sander, R. Wie ist das mit dem magischen Blick? junge wissenschaft, May, 57-60 (1995)

To create your own autostereograms you can download magic-3d (1.4 MB). It is a DOS program (in German) that creates autostereograms of arbitrary size. Several pattern and depths files are included. The program is copyrighted by Spektrum der Wissenschaft and available for download here with permission.