Peripheral Motion Illusions

We've been struggling with what to do for the cover art of Java Puzzlers, and some brainstorming brought us to the idea something like the amazing optical illusions of professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka. They are absolutely mind-blowing. At first you'll think they are animated GIF images, but I assure you the pictures move when printed on paper too! Professor Kitaoka has two books in print, and plans to publish English translations soon. In the U.S. you can get the Japanese books from the Kinokuniya bookstore.

I installed Macromedia Freehand FX on my Mac and was able to reproduce some of his more stunnning illusions, and then tried creating some of my own. Like this one.