SLC (Cattleya) Aloha Apricot

[Tancos]

My SLC [Sophrolaeliocattleya] (or Cattleya) Aloha Apricot has opened its first flowers. They're about two-and-a-half inches in diameter. The plant is a compact eight inches tall, including the pot. Here are a couple of pictures of it. The second one is a cross-view stereo; cross your eyes so that you see three images, focus on the middle one, and the picture should snap into three dimensions. The small white flowers are Oncidium Tsiku Marguerite, which is also putting on a show. The Cattleya has no fragrance that I can detect, but the color is nice.

[Leafmite]

I like the bright colors!

[Kruger]

Very pretty. I like how all the petals / sepals are mixed colors except the lip which is more segregated. Also the blue background is fun!

[neophyte]

haha I can't cross my eyes without everything going all blurry... they're still beautiful, 3D or not!

[WaterWitchin]

Very electric looking colors. Nice, Nice.

[Jeff214]

Great tropical colors!
Nice touch with the blue background, really makes the orange pop.

[ArronOB]

Very nice orchid.
When I cross my eyes and look at the middle image, the effect is striking, except that I see the Oncidium in front of the cattleya, not behind it. This is weird because parts of the Oncidium are missing where they are obscured by the cat. My brain knows that something can’t simultaneously be in front of something as well as obscured by it - but that is what I see.

Does this happen to everyone or is it just me?

[Tancos]

Thank you all for the generous words. I thought a blue background might work better for this orchid than the usual black, and it looks like it does.

Originally Posted by ArronOB

Very nice orchid.
When I cross my eyes and look at the middle image, the effect is striking, except that I see the Oncidium in front of the cattleya, not behind it. This is weird because parts of the Oncidium are missing where they are obscured by the cat. My brain knows that something can’t simultaneously be in front of something as well as obscured by it - but that is what I see.

I think you are using the "parallel" method to view the stereogram, in which the right eye focuses on the right image and the left eye the left image. This is the easier and more natural technique for many people, but the size of the picture is limited by the distance between the pupils of the eyes. The "cross-view" method, in which the right eye focuses on the left image and the left on the right, feels more awkward and is less comfortable, but allows the stereograph to be larger. It's easier to do than to explain. Not everybody can free-view stereo images; I've known stereo experts who could not view their own work without using a special viewer.

I'd like to insert a couple of helpful links here, but I get a "post denied" message when I do, grrr. Let's see if I can work around that. Add the obvious prefixes to the links below.

This article discusses some techniques for stereo viewing: enfopress.com/how-to-view-3d-images/

The first 2:10 of this video might also help (it may be more palatable with the sound off): watch?v=cvShotHl1As

[ArronOB]

Now that I’ve read your post, I think the explanation is that I wear reading glasses with a slight prism effect.