TestUFO Persistence of Vision: Animation With Optical Illusion

Blur Busters has created many brand new TestUFO.com display motion tests.

One of our newer tests stands out quite impressively with a “Persistence of Vision” optical illusion effect, and is very educational about display motion blur and refresh rates.

www.testufo.com/persistence

1. First, look at the stationary UFO. Observe you see vertical lines.
2. Next, look at the moving UFO. Optical illusion appears.

This optical illusion also has two interesting effects:

  • Horizontal resolution in this animation is limited by refresh rate
    Doubling refresh rate will double the horizontal resolution of the optical illusion seen (without modifying motion speed or line separation). This persistence-of-vision optical illusion is limited by the animation’s frame rate and monitor’s refresh rate.
  • Vertical edges in this animation can be very sharp on recent displays
    Compare this to TestUFO Panning Photo test which has more persistence-related motion blurring from eye tracking. Persistence blurring is much bigger than LCD GtG pixel-response blurring on newer LCDs. This animation filters persistence away from pixel response (GtG).

If you are using a CRT or ULMB/LightBoost display, the illusion looks different. To see this optical illusion, try testing on a different LCD display without motion blur reduction. If the animations stutters a lot, try closing all browser windows or temporarily test in a different browser.

We originally created this animation for our recent 480Hz tests.

Click/Tap the animation to go to www.testufo.com/persistence and adjust the animation in full screen mode. This optical illusion also appears on mobile phones and tablets screens too!