Excel Optical Illusions Week #29

This week's Excel Optical Illusion is called Kaleidoscope Motion and was originally created by Peter van der Helm in 2007. I modeled mine after Michael Bach's version, but with a twist:

kaleidoscope_motion_optical_illusion_excelhero.com.gif

From Michael Bach's site...

The red cogwheel rotates, but does it rotate smoothely? Physically, the rotation is perfectly smooth as you can confirm by making parts of the arrangement transparent. However it seemingly jolts ever so often.

To my eye it looks as if the blue inner cog jumps to the left periodically. While I included the outer cog, I decided to color it white to enhance the effect.

My Excel version of the illusion uses simple shapes that are grouped and rotated via VBA.

As always, the workbook animation is much, much better than the GIF.

Here is the file.

.xls

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Why do I share these optical illusions? The techniques that are used to make them, when mastered, can be used in many other Excel projects, in charting, formula crafting, and formatting. Learn them. They will aid you on your journey to become an Excel Hero.

Here is a list of other Excel Optical Illusions here at Excel Hero:

- Bulging Checkerboard

- Egg Shadow

- Eye Jitter

- Stereokinetic Illusion