How Do They Work?

These elegant little movie machines rival the classic motion picture toys of more than a century ago. Contrary to popular belief, they're not holograms. Surprisingly, the technology, in one form or another, has been around for centuries!

Briefly explained, the technique combines parallax perception (your angle of view) with moiré-style multiple-line patterns to create the illusion of motion. When a scrambled image layer is viewed through a striped decoder layer, a series of sequential pictures is revealed to your eye, and your brain links this succession of images together, creating the illusion of motion.

If this still sounds a little complicated, that's because it is! Half the fun is seeing these optical wonders in action. The other half is trying to figure out what makes them go!