3D-Printed Moiré Illusion May Just Drive You Crazy

Moiré illusions can be visually captivating, particularly when a little rotational motion is thrown in the mix. [Dushyant Ahuja] was a fan of these moving Moiré sculptures he’d seen around the place, and decided to create his own.

The build is based around spinning two spoked discs in opposite directions, such that the spokes create moving Moiré patterns as they turn. To achieve this, the discs were 3D printed, along with a central housing containing two 12 volt gear motors. 3D printed gears are used to allow both discs to rotate about the same axis. Nominally, the motors spin relatively slowly, generating a pleasing, hypnotic effect when turning the discs.

The drivetrain is under the control of an ESP8266, though [Dushyant] notes that to get the basic effect, one need only connect the motors to a 12 volt power supply and let them run. However, future plans involve adding some LEDs for bling, and varying the motor speed to create yet more complex effects. With the microcontroller already installed, upgrades should be a cinch.

Moiré effects are good for everything from guiding ships to taking precision measurements. If you’ve found a new application for these confounding line patterns, be sure to let us know! Video after the break.

20 thoughts on “3D-Printed Moiré Illusion May Just Drive You Crazy

    1. Seriously? That comment has been bouncing around hackaday for the last 10 years or so, think it was on A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE THAT LETS YOU CODE WITH PIXELS last I checked.

      1. Hahaha! That was good! Yea, I don’t get the “hey, this has appeared somewhere else so why post it here?”.

        So the project has been on the web for 6 months. Know what? In those 6 months, I didn’t see it. Hackaday is where I get a good portion of my electronics/tech project news, so I’m glad they featured it here, otherwise I might never have seen it.

        1. +1 – I haven’t seen it either, and don’t spend hours searching for things like this on other sites, so good job HAD. If someone has seen it, it’s not that hard for them to move to not read the article. It’s not like something like this is outdated because someone made it 6 months ago.
          – Interesting effect with the bent spoke shape.

    1. More people have 3d printers than laser cutters. Price is off by an order of magnitude on those tools (if you want something approaching a reasonably safe and effective laser cutter that is)

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