Ames Room
When looking at the ames room, there are two illusions that are being
experienced. The first illusion is a result of looking through a
special viewing point with one eye and a stationary head. Looking
through this peephole removes any cues from stereopsis and makes the
room appear normal and cubic although it's shape is actually
trapezoidal, the floor is actually on an incline and the walls are
slanted outward. The true shape of the room can be seen when not
viewing the room through the peephole or when looking at it from a
top view.
The second illusion is that objects in the room appear to shrink or grow depending
on where they move in the room.
This special shape of the room removes all distance cues and does not
allow for proper scaling of object size. A consequence of this is that
we see people or objects as the same size as their retinal image.
This room makes the transformation of objects that appear in it to
seem impossible. The angle that at which an object appears impossible
is called the Ames Transformation and in this example the Ames
transformation point would be the peephole.
A famous example that displays the Ames transformation point is the
Trident Illusion