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Sugihara's Dog

258 points| sohkamyung | 3 years ago |twitter.com | reply

25 comments

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[+] js2|3 years ago|reply
If you, like me, are one of today's lucky ten thousand[1], here's some context:

Kokichi Suhihara is an engineering professor who designs 3D objects that create optical illusions, including their mirrored images. Here's his English home page:

http://www.isc.meiji.ac.jp/~kokichis/Welcomee.html

So we're looking at a photo of an actual 3D object and its mirrored reflection, which should obviously appear incorrect since, well, the reflection is not apparently mirrored but rather facing the same way as the real object. I think the key to understanding what we're seeing is that the non-mirrored image is also not as it appears. We'd need to see it rotated to understand the actual shape.

Here's a short YouTube video of his "Ambiguous Garage Roof" that I've now watched several times and it keeps blowing my mind:

https://youtu.be/KtA6u1HIqbg

[1] https://xkcd.com/1053/

[+] omershapira|3 years ago|reply
Funny story: In 1984, my mom, a Computational Geometry researcher, saw a proof [1] in some IEEE journal that she was annoyed with. It seemed way too general and was too easy to disprove, so she did [2], in a subsequent publication, with the author's name in the title.

She later told me he courteously publicized a correction, credited her, and would mail her pre-prints for his papers since. Earlier this year I looked up the claim and counterclaim: Turns out it's Kokichi Sugihara.

I guess in the 80s well-actuallying in Mathematics journals was good form. :)

[1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4767571

[2] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4767487

[+] the_af|3 years ago|reply
> Here's a short YouTube video of his "Ambiguous Garage Roof" that I've now watched several times and it keeps blowing my mind:

> https://youtu.be/KtA6u1HIqbg

What the...

What's amazing about the Ambiguous Garage is that even after I've seen how the illusion is done, my brain keeps getting fooled. It's one of those things where it's simply impossible not to "see" the illusion even after you understand it.

[+] dark-star|3 years ago|reply
His illusions are awesome. Even if you know how they work (watch his videos), your brain will still not be able to completely comprehend them.

That's what makes a good optical illusion.

[+] coldpie|3 years ago|reply
It took me an embarrassingly long time to even realize what the illusion was.
[+] BelleOfTheBall|3 years ago|reply
Searching on YouTube doesn't seem to bring anything about the one linked here, am I putting in the wrong term? I'd love to know how this was done, it's messing with my head.
[+] IIAOPSW|3 years ago|reply
Remember folks, if you're unsure, illusions don't have shadows.
[+] turtleyacht|3 years ago|reply
That.. sounds like you have a bag of old-school RPG tricks? I wish you did. Thanks for this one.
[+] hammock|3 years ago|reply
Is there a place to buy these? Or download the plans and somewhere that will print them for you?
[+] CobrastanJorji|3 years ago|reply
Here's a star/heart that's the same idea: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-ambiguous-star...

I've printed it and physically fiddling with it made it much more clear how it worked.

I haven't seen a print for that dog, though.

In theory, I think you could use Sugihara's approach to automatically generate such a model for most closed curves. That'd be a cool little program that I don't know how to write.

[+] pvaldes|3 years ago|reply
So the dog structure is a "3D palindrome", it seems.