Diatom

[Johann]

Diatom from Stefan Barone slide.
60x WI objective - DIC - 13 image stack.

diatom.jpg (84.88 KiB) Viewed 6154 times

[75RR]

Quite Beautiful

[MichaelG.]

Quite Beautiful

I agree

MichaelG.

[MichaelG.]

What I find rather interesting is the optical illusion of bas relief, given by DIC

Here is your image as presented:

as presented

IMG_2711.JPG (89.26 KiB) Viewed 6132 times

and here inverted [180° rotation]:

rotated 180°

IMG_2711.JPG (56.64 KiB) Viewed 6132 times

Presumably I am not alone in seeing the first as a convex surface with bumps, and the second as a concave surface with pits.

Conclusion: Don't believe everything you see

MichaelG.
.
.

Finally, here is a screenshot from the Natural History Museum website, with a comparable SEM image:

SEM image of similar

IMG_2710.png (360.35 KiB) Viewed 6132 times

.

Edit: Here is a demonstration of the illusion:
http://ideate.xsead.cmu.edu/gallery/pro ... e-illusion

[Hobbyst46]

@Johan:

Very nice!
Was the background cleaned by post-processing?
Which mounting medium?

@MichaelG:
About the convex and concave perception of the relief - same with me! but many optical illusion drawings are based on human perception...

[Johann]

@Michael, that is very neat - thanks for pointing it out - the pitted version is a more accurate representation I guess

[Johann]

Was the background cleaned by post-processing?

The slide is very clean - so minimal touch-up in Photoshop

Which mounting medium?

No idea - slide is from the Diatom Shop

[Radazz]

This phenomenon always seems to plague me when I look at a photo of lunar craters.
Radazz

[einman]

Wow! Very beautiful..and well done.

[sailor_ed]

When working with SEM photography I frequently encountered this illusion. I believe it is caused by the brains expectation that things are illuminated from above. This causes problems if things are illuminated ambiguously as is often the case with the SEM.. or lunar landscapes. I always rotated images to best present the actual typography. Used to really bug me when this was not done.. like lunar crater photos.

Stunning image of the diatom no matter the shading! Oh, how I dream of DIC.

[SpocksSister]

Absolutely gorgeous, I love DIC images.