The transparent desktop optical illusion

Yeah, you just take a shot of what's behind your screen and make it your desktop background. We'll spare you the "Why didn't we think of that?" biz as we just sit in awe of its completely obvious awesomeness. And yes, we tried it, and yes, it's more difficult than it looks to get it just right, especially if you don't have a laptop. It's all about the fold-down screen, dude.

[Via BoingBoing]

[Jesse @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Pulling out my Pentax as we speak!

[christopher wanko @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Oh man, is this a forehead slapper.

[Bill @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Cool! Oh I'm doing that.

[Max @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

better take at least 48 shots so you can cycle thru morning, afternoon and nightime lighting, duh-uh...

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Nicely done. If it wasn't for the slight discontinuities (e.g. the cable on the right), I'd have guessed it was a chroma-keying trick.

(e.g. take photo with the lid shut, take a photo with the lid open and an all-blue desktop background, then merge everything that's not blue)

[Aram David @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

yeah... live shot would be cool, but is that possible? I dont know if I would classify this as AWESOME, but its fun to look at.

[Jesse @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Update: Ultra-subcompact cameras lack the telephoto capabilities for something like this :

[Atomb @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

A good variation that i did once at work while bored...

Take a picture of your screen. Set it as your wall paper and take another picture of your screen with the new 'wallpaper'. Then display the second image as your wallpaper and take a picture of that screen...

Continue for the full 'infinity' effect...you'll dazzle co-workers with your creativity! Promotions will only be hours away!

My boss laughed and then commented that I wasn't working hard enough and had too much time on my hands.

Oh well.

[Golf Grouch @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Great idea. Unfortunately there's a blank white wall behind my monitor so the effect sucks...

[B2m @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Hook up a webcam with the right Specs and enjoy the liveeffect ;)

[memodude @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

That looks like a PowerBook running (omg) Mac OS 9. How could you? Eeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!

(rofl)

[OddManOut @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I took a swing at this once a couple years ago on my old Compaq laptop (Compaq...what was I on?). It IS rather difficult. I never got it to look anywhere near as nice as that though, the edges didn't line up nearly as convincingly, and this guy/gal has seemingly adjusted to accomdate for the width of the frame. Neither of which did I do, but the screen was of such horrible quality you could barely tell anyway.

Nice art project.

[Remy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

AH, very nice. Good tip, folding down the screen of my laptop, heheh, why didn't I think of that =] Got a nice shot anyhow, but where do I post it?

[diffledorf @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I used to:
1-Screen shot my coworkers desktop with everything minimized.
2-Make that their background.
3-Lock their PC to show only their background.
4-Enjoy watching them try to double click on a locked screen.

[word. @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Inspired by Magritte?

[EvilBit @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

(Hint: cross your eyes)

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

It's not creepy that I thought about doing exactly this same thing before. What's creepy is that I thought about and tried it last night, about 6 hours before this story came up!

[WiYB_Sirius @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

It shouldnt be that hard to do...

All you have to do is mount a camera on a tripod, so it absolutely wont move and take a picture with the screen out of the pic. Then, keeping the camera in the exact same spot, edit the picture so that it looks good to the eye, then take the picture again from the exact same spot! TADA!

[ccccccctranter @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

webcam + php + active desktop = realtime invisible desktop

[cpsethgt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Very cool!

Evilbit, when I first saw this post, I instantly looked for your submission on the Daily Gadget, but it was gone. I'm glad you posted it.

[felipemusica @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

ohoh!

[Harvey @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Laptop pfffft! Check out this invisible cloak:

http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDIA/xv/oc.html

[Fred @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

more transparent screens from Macbidouille:
http://files.macbidouille.com/transparent/

[BJBarron @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

This is REALLY cool but wouldn't it look better without any desktop icons? I run all my WinXP without any icons. You all can throw sticks and stones at me but my poor old G4 Mac is still running OS 9.2. I know, I know... I will, I will.

One bad thing about this without the icons is a bunch of idiots will start trying to see if they could stick their hands through the screen thinking they will touch whatever behind and there is nothing I hate more than dirty oily finger prints on my screen.

[jorellh @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I've done this before, no I didn't come up with the idea. My PC in my kitchen has my wallpaper as a desktop background and it blends in perfectly.

[Bigbird @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I just did this to my computer, but using just my scanner. Did it in one shot. I would send u guys a pic but i dont have a digicam

[jpod @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I tried this, but it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it to.

[Dean Shan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Yeah I've seen this before. People have been doing this for long time.

[EvilBit @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Oh wow. I think I got censored for linking to another gadget-related news site. Bad form, Engadget! Mean!

[EvilBit @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I can understand, with a bit of mental stretching, how providing a URL to another site (to which I am in no way affiliated) could be construed, loosely, as some sort of distant cousin to spam (though honestly, I could have sworn the most appropriate term was "hyper-linking" or simply "linking"). In my defense, I did it to balance out my karma for linking earlier to a picture they were hosting. I can't, however, seem to wrap my head around why the original post got censored too. And then my post following it, which makes no sense out of context, was left in. Seems kinda weird and fascist.

[jorellh @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Only on this site would noone consider it weird that I have a PC in my kitchen. I use it to look up recipies and check email.

[DrNo @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

For us WinXP users, www.nuonsoft.com/wallpapercycler will let you set your webcam to a wallpaper.

[JKelly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Yeah? Well, I did this back in in 1834 before monitors were even invented...and my dad's monitor is bigger than yours, so there..

[lc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

SHAZAM!

http://img202.exs.cx/img202/8081/oqodesktopsm5ss.jpg

[Peter Miller @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Hi everybody. Nice to read about this idea. But its not really new. A German Design Buero did this thing about a year ago with big advertising signs near the street. they made photos of the building behind it and printed it ( like the computer desktop thing discussed about here ) on the sign. So the guys waiting on a bus looked on it and thought about.. whats this... can I see through the sign? But the desktop thing is fine, too...

[Simon Williams @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Check this laptop face I did a couple of years ago !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15766162@N00/7471513/

[Ted @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

I know an easier way: you take a saw and cut out the screen of your moniter and everything behind it, creating the perfect 'transparent wallpaper' effect.
This way is by far the best; it is three dimensional, real time, and you can even put your hand through and actually TOUCH whatever is behind!

[Kroc Camen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Damn my stupidity, this is evading me - where do I take the picture from!?

[Anton Olsen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

James has posted a good howto here:
http://lr2.com/archives/2005/03/25/transparent-screens-a-howto/

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Jame's howto was very helpful. He says the color correct is the most important and difficult step.

Well I have to agree. My experiments so far didn't really succeed. I get everything right, but I don't get that really transparent feel, because the colors of the picture are not good enough.

So I was wondering : in what way should I correct the colors in the picture that will be used as desktop wallpaper?

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

What having your monitor aginst the window, take a pict of the summer or winter, then have it the opsite of what it is outside, that might be neat.

[Tushar Dayal @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Take a picture of what's inside your apartment/house, and then project it on the outside wall so that people passing think they can see into your place!

[DAve @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

1. Minimize everything on your mates desktop
2. Printscreen
3. Paste and save as wallpaper
4. Right click on desktop -> arrange icons by -> untick show desktop icons
5. Watch them try to double click on My Computer / My Documents

[ug @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Note that this only works with one fixed perspective.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Ok smartypants...explain this one...

http://idisk.mac.com/jidnet/Public/dbook-transp.mov

[Mike Widman @ Dec 19th 2005 12:53AM]

Looks like the video has been edited, Mike. How's that done?