This Optical Illusion is Actually Genius: A New Level of Scanimation

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Look how the picture literally comes to life right before your eyes on this simple piece of paper. This effect is called barrier grid animation or simply scanimation.

[00:00:10]>> [music] >> The magic happens when we move black stripes over a specially prepared image.

[00:00:14]In reality, it is just an optical illusion.

[00:00:17]>> [music] >> And the most interesting part is that you can make this animation not only with straight bars, but also with wavy lines like these.

[00:00:27]Or [music] with a zigzag pattern and different colors.

[00:00:30]Or in a circle with these whimsical lines.

[00:00:33]>> [music] >> How does it work, you might ask?

[00:00:37]Imagine you're looking at a cat through a fence. You don't see the whole cat, only what isn't hidden by [music] the pickets. And what if what's hidden by the slats isn't a cat at all? A dog.

[00:00:46]Huh.

[00:00:46]>> [music] >> Well, it's a joke, of course, but it illustrates perfectly that we can artificially place anything in the parts hidden behind the bars.

[00:00:54]We can also slightly change the cat's [music] position. And now, as you move your eyes or the fence itself, we see the cat as if it's moving.

[00:01:01]>> [music] >> The black slats act like shutters. They hide the previous frame, while the slits reveal the next one.

[00:01:07]And here, [music] three frames of a cat moving are encoded. Through the narrow slit, we see one [music] position, and the other two are hidden by the bars. As a result, if you speed up the frame switching, it looks like the fence is moving and a cat is running behind it.

[00:01:21]>> [music] >> In this example, six frames are already encoded.

[00:01:26]This strange image on paper literally transforms [music] into a running cat right before our eyes when we slide the grid of vertical stripes over it.

[00:01:35]The animation looks much better when both the image [music] and the stripes are black.

[00:01:39]But this effect wasn't invented yesterday. It's over a century old. In the 1920s, [music] ambro cinema toys were popular in France. Essentially, they were the world's first [music] pocket cinemas. No batteries or screens, just a wooden frame with slits and a paper strip.

[00:01:55]You turn the [music] handle and the picture comes to life.

[00:01:59]Today, this magic has gone far beyond paper.

[00:02:02]Architects use this effect to create living building facades that start moving when you simply walk past.

[00:02:09]Designers make ordinary things come alive and turn office and restaurant walls into animated interactive art objects.

[00:02:21]Look at this metal gate. It looks [music] just like those old ambro cinematoids.

[00:02:26]And some people even decide to get tattoos in this style. Comment below if you would like one, too.

[00:02:32]Now, let's try to make a scanimation ourselves [music] with the simplest example. I'll show you using Canva since it doesn't require any special skills.

[00:02:39]Create an A5 document. Draw [music] one thin line in the center and color it black. This is our future frame.

[00:02:46]>> [music] >> Now, I'll copy this page and rotate the line slightly clockwise.

[00:02:51]I'll do this a few times.

[00:02:53]In the end, we have six frames of our line rotating. Next, I click share and click download. I'll save them and we have six images.

[00:03:02]Now, we go [music] to scanimation.org, a site specifically designed to create scanimations from your images. I'll select all the frames and drop them into this field. If [music] you click play, we'll see what the animation should look like. Frame width will set based on the number of frames. For me, that's six.

[00:03:19]Frame overlap, leave it at one.

[00:03:21]Direction, left [music] or right. When you click scanimate, it generates one combined striped image and a second one, the slat mask, [music] with parameters specially chosen for this image. On the left, we can already see what the result should be, but I still want to transfer this to paper and [music] see it in real life. Click grid and image and save the files.

[00:03:41]Now, for the most critical part, we need to print them correctly. To make it work, make sure to choose the same paper size, orientation, and scale. Next, [music] in the print settings for the drawing, we need to choose plain paper and set the quality to high. For the grid, [music] the difference is that you need to choose glossy photo paper. This setting works best for printing on transparency film. The quality should also be set to the highest.

[00:04:05]After adjusting the settings, send both images to [music] the printer.

[00:04:09]I want to warn you that you can only print on special transparency film. This is especially important for laser printers, as using [music] the wrong film can damage the internal parts of the machine.

[00:04:20]All right, let [music] us see what we have got.

[00:04:23]Here is the drawing. Here is the film with the grid. I'm lowering it [music] slowly.

[00:04:28]And voila, the line really is rotating.

[00:04:31]How do you like the result? Let me know in the comments.

[00:04:34]>> [music] >> I'd say the first attempt was a success.

[00:04:37]You can also easily make this kind of animation from any video.

[00:04:41]AI generated this short clip of Donald Trump for me. To turn the video into individual frames, [music] I go to easygif.com. I click video tools and then to JPG.

[00:04:51]I'll upload our clip into this field. I click convert to JPG. This service converted the video into several images from the frames. [music] I'll download them all to my computer by clicking download frames as zip. Next, we go back to scanimation.org and drop all the Trump frames into the sidebar.

[00:05:06]Everything else is the same [music] as with the line. You just need to choose the right frames for the animation. I'll delete the rest.

[00:05:13]>> [music] >> I kept six frames, and this is the head movement we got.

[00:05:17]I tried reducing the frame width to three first, and then to two. The black stripes turned out very thin.

[00:05:24]>> [music] >> Imagine, a line only two pixels wide manages to hide five frames of animation at once.

[00:05:32]It looks good, [music] but when I printed the result, a surprise was waiting for me. The grid turned out to be almost opaque.

[00:05:38]The thing is, at this thickness, the printer simply lacks precision.

[00:05:42]>> [music] >> The transparent gaps between the lines become almost invisible. You can barely see anything on paper.

[00:05:48]However, [music] if you place a lamp and shine it through the picture from the back, the animation is much clearer.

[00:05:56]Now, I'd like to show you a few more amazing animations that look absolutely stunning.

[00:06:03]You can find [music] and download them, for example, on opticalillusionsq.com.

[00:06:08]There you'll find the images themselves, the masks, and videos demonstrating the scanimations. I'll also provide a link in the description where you can download many other similar pictures.

[00:06:17][music] By the way, look, I have slat masks for five and six frame backgrounds. This sheet tells me which mask I need to use, but if I try to use the wrong mask, I won't see the encoded animation.

[00:06:36]And here [music] is the correct mask.

[00:06:39]The image comes to life instantly.

[00:06:41]>> [music] >> Could you have imagined that this strange striped image resembling a spider would turn into such a flying seagull?

[00:06:47]If you hadn't seen the label, of course.

[00:06:48][music] Here are a few more examples of barrier grid animation. This effect works well not only with a black drawing on a white background, [music] but also with a white drawing on a black background.

[00:07:03]Look at the interesting animation encoded here. The circles switch between black and white depending on the background they move over.

[00:07:12]And from the animation of this dinosaur, you can see that the illusion works a bit worse with colored drawings.

[00:07:20]The image looks a bit dull and dark.

[00:07:25]>> [music] >> All right. While searching for examples, I came across a very cool project created by guys from MIT. They realized that this kind of animation [music] can be made with more than just straight lines. In their tool, they included features that allow you to create a grid of almost any shape using mathematical formulas.

[00:07:48]>> [music] >> You can download the app from their article page by clicking code. It will take you to GitHub. There's a detailed installation guide here. [music] Let's launch the system. Right now, you see ordinary stripes. What can we do here? First, using the resolution parameter, we can decrease or [music] increase the thickness of the lines. By changing the direction, we can adjust the angle of the stripes. But, the coolest part of this development is hidden here. Instead of drawing the line shapes manually, math takes [music] control.

[00:08:16]Just type in a formula, and the system will generate a pattern of almost [music] any complexity.

[00:08:21]Look at the result we get when I click generate.

[00:08:24]Incredible. [music] There are two more squares at the bottom.

[00:08:28]On the second one, three more adjustment parameters appear. Essentially, it's the same as the first one, but here the grid is at some distance from the background itself. We can [music] adjust this exact distance.

[00:08:40]This is how it looks in real life.

[00:08:43]And on the third switch, we move to circle mode. [music] The patterns here can be even more unexpected. The circle with stripes moves clockwise or counterclockwise [music] around the center, and at the same time, we see the animation of the image itself.

[00:08:58]You can find the generated masks and images in [music] the program folder. To do that, go into this folder, then into the data folder, and here is the image in normal mode. This is the grid. This unusual pattern is the base image for the circle, [music] and this is the grid for the circle.

[00:09:13]Here we can add our own animation. Let's create a new folder and move our frames into it. Now, we can select our folder in this field.

[00:09:22]Click generate, and we can start working with our own project.

[00:09:26]I experimented a lot with settings and formulas, and these are the results I was able to achieve with this app. It's just amazing how math was able to breathe [music] new life into this long-known optical illusion.

[00:09:39]I put the formulas that, in my opinion, create the most unusual and interesting patterns into a Google Sheet. I'll also leave the [music] link in the description.

[00:09:48]The creators of this project believe their solution will help designers and other creative people create something unique. [music] I think that's exactly what will happen.

[00:09:56]Keep an eye out for various designer goods and toys with these effects on store shelves. Thanks to them for their hard work.

[00:10:04]I found another unusual example of scanamation. It's notable because the mask here isn't made of stripes, but of holes.

[00:10:11]But it works exactly the same way. The holes act as on and off switches for the frames encoded in the image.

[00:10:18]You'll find all the links to the resources I used, as well as other [music] useful materials that didn't make it into this video, in the description below.

[00:10:28]And now, a demonstration of a few more scanamations, but without my comments.

[00:10:33]Subscribe and check out my other videos.

[00:10:35]>> [music] >> See you in the next one.

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