LGR - The Magic Eye/Stare•EO Workshop Story
Added 2025-05-22 15:43:34 +0000 UTCFINALLY. This is a video that's been on my agenda for five years now, and has actively been worked on between my other projects for the last two months.
This is the story of those Magic Eye images from the 90s — but also MUCH more, what a fascinating rabbit hole full of random research diversions! This all began in 2020 when I was sent a copy of Stare-E-O Workshop for MS-DOS, a program I'd never hard of at all and couldn't find much about online. But knowing it was from the same company that made the first Magic Eye books, I had to know more! Sadly the software didn't work so I set it aside, but after doing a tiny bit of research back then I was absolutely dead set on finding a working copy so I could someday make a video.
Then when I found another copy of the software at the end of last August, it finally arrived juuust in time for the stupid hurricane to wreck my plans, ha. Eventually I began working on it again this past March and BOY did the scope of the project increase the deeper I dove into research. The first half of this video isn't really about the software at all, it turned into a Tech Tales type of episode about SIRDS, N.E. Thing Enterprises, and many related ventures. Then I had to know more about the creation of patterned autostereograms once I saw how limited Stare-EO Workshop's dot patterns were... then I ordered more books, old postcards, VHS tapes, obscure old software and on and on, etc etc, until I cut myself off a few weeks back and truly dove into assembling this video for real. With stuff like this it's hard to know where to stop, it could easily be an hour-long documentary if I continued following all of the unexpected twists and turns this uncovered.
So with all that said, I hope you enjoy this scattered bunch of ideas that eventually coalesced into some sort of LGR thing!
Comments
This might be overall one of the best video's you've ever created.
chocotako
2025-06-12 20:23:26 +0000 UTCThis video helped me to actually see Magic Eye images! Thank you!
G M
2025-06-03 00:51:08 +0000 UTCI was so excited when I saw this. I've always been fascinated by these. Never have I paused a video so many times!
Grant Pluntze
2025-05-26 00:29:52 +0000 UTCI celebrated this episode. It’s a tech tale and something that is a key to my memories. Now I have to find the book and show it to the kids. Thanks a lot !
Infernal7
2025-05-25 19:57:34 +0000 UTCSo, I'm legally blind, left eye being far worse then my right. I've never been able to see these. I read your post on Bluesky, It will be interesting to "see" if it helps me decipher the hidden image beneath the static.
Vaggumon
2025-05-24 02:49:48 +0000 UTCWhoa!! I’ve gotta try that.
LGR
2025-05-23 03:10:09 +0000 UTCI still have that postcard booklet! Also, the old DOS game Magic Carpet (but not its sequel) supports a random dot stereogram rendering mode! It's... INCREDIBLY difficult to play the game that way since all you can see is shapes and the algorithm in use is only generating a very small number of different depths, so everything looks like layers of paper cutouts when you can get your eyes to focus on it, but just the fact that you can play a 90s first-person 3D game like that is ridiculous! :o
Kris Asick
2025-05-23 02:54:42 +0000 UTCGreat job on the intro!!! That was smooth. These things were always fascinating to me and I'm glad you were able to dig into this!
Nachts
2025-05-22 23:03:17 +0000 UTCI never knew what the deal was with Magic Eye and didn't understand what they were supposed to do other than look like a mess of colors. The first time I've seen one work as with this video!
Tyler Compton
2025-05-22 22:04:18 +0000 UTCAges ago I got a demo for this software (or one that was very similar) in one of those PC magazines with demo CDs. As far as I know it could make all the images I wanted, it just left a barely noticeable watermark on a corner. I remember being a bit disappointed that it could only be a TV static pattern and not images, but the results worked great. I've loved these images all my life, and I can nearly always see them instantly. I belong to a couple of Facebook groups that share them, so I always keep my eyes trained to see them.
Pablo Rodriguez
2025-05-22 21:08:39 +0000 UTCGive the dot pattern ones made here with Stare-EO Workshop a try! Especially on a larger monitor. For some reason those are the most vivid and easy to see that I've come across.
LGR
2025-05-22 18:39:41 +0000 UTCVery neat. I've always had trouble seeing these. I have managed to see them in some rare scenarios, so I know what they look like. But in most cases I just can't seem to do it.
The 8-Bit Guy
2025-05-22 18:28:22 +0000 UTCThis has become one of my favorite LGR videos ever! A few years ago I wrote a short story, where to avoid using the name Magic Eye, I learned about terms like “autostereogram” and “wall-eyed”. I’ve also done some research on dithering techniques, and the usage of blue noise masks looks similar to what is used for these “3-D” images. Great research, this will be a fun rabbit hole for me to dive into.
Chad Armstrong
2025-05-22 18:23:32 +0000 UTCI showed some of the animated ones in the video! I always have much more of a challenge seeing those, it's only the real sharp static images I can see easily. Interesting you mention the text approach, one thing that didn't make it into the video is that some of the very earliest stereograms in this style were made using typewriters and lots of offset columns of alphanumeric characters :)
LGR
2025-05-22 17:29:20 +0000 UTCThere are even animated versions of these in video or GIF forms! I'm about a year older than you so I lived through the 90's and I did come accross these images. I really like them to this day. I don't really know how it works, but I can easily see them. I tried to make a patter in a note editor program with a bunch of spaces and a couple of columns of + signs, then move one + sign one column to whichever side and that + sign popped out or it was indented. That's as far as I could go with them :)
Dukefazon
2025-05-22 17:25:00 +0000 UTCThe technology is fascinating, but I have no depth perception and so these things don't work for me. 3D movies to me are just annoying because I have to wear glasses to see a slightly out of focus movie whilst everyone else goes "wow!".
Chris Horry
2025-05-22 16:43:03 +0000 UTC_Fascinating!_ Congrats on finishing this, excited to watch this later today!
Chris
2025-05-22 16:33:02 +0000 UTCI can only see out of one eye so these effects do not work on me, but this is still interesting. I wonder if this technique is similar to that annoying "hold a piece of red plastic over something that looks like those images to get a hidden message" things that I mostly associate with this old Password home game that I had when I was younger and that we never played (though hindsight from actually watching Password Plus and Super Password says I would have really enjoyed it).
Pietro Gagliardi
2025-05-22 16:18:45 +0000 UTCAnd Ooowwhh I remember this.. never could see the image (still can’t), my best friend could, so frustrating, teenage me (1981) felt so inadequate, so I didn’t like these 😆
Jasper Colijn
2025-05-22 16:16:06 +0000 UTCI've really enjoyed your tech tales content previously (both formally designated and similar in spirit) so I'm excited to watch just base on your description.
Nathan S.
2025-05-22 15:57:45 +0000 UTCThis is an excellent topic. It may have been years of research (and you certainly don't need to do that for all videos) but it's a cool one because it touches on nostalgia beyond technology. My friends and I all had Magic Eye books as kids and they weren't into technology at all. Hopefully the algorithim picks this up and broadcasts it past a tech-friendly audience.
Chris Gardner
2025-05-22 15:56:25 +0000 UTCYES! I was hoping this was what you were covering. Looking forward to crossing my eyes in front of my TV :D
Jim Leonard
2025-05-22 15:53:09 +0000 UTC
