Motion parallax is a shift in position as a result of the viewer’s movements. Motion parallax occurs as the observer moves through the environment. Let us see the motion parallax example in our surroundings.
Driving a car
If a person is driving a car on a highway with street lights, trees, buildings, and mountains on each side, the passengers in the car looking outside the window will have the impression that the things on the road are traveling at different speeds from one another. If you are a passenger, you will notice that the objects nearest to you, such as street lights and trees, appear to move at a higher speed, while those farther away, such as buildings and mountains, appear to move at a slower speed.
This occurs because of the phenomenon known as parallax, which causes objects closer to the viewer to appear to move quicker than objects that are further away. When it occurs as a result of motion, it is referred to as motion parallax.
Image Credits: https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-zkchv/
Let us see other examples of three cars with the same speed moving on the same highway but in different lanes. For the passenger of the first car in the first lane of the highway, it appears that the second car, which is closer in the second lane, is moving faster than that of the third car in the third lane, which is at a distance on the highway.
Photo by Kylle Pangan on Unsplash
Train
Have you ever had the opportunity to travel by train? If you answered yes, you might have seen how particular incredible landscapes are and how they move from your seat near the window. If you look closely through the window, you may have noticed that the trees closest to the window appear to be moving quicker than the distant range of mountains, despite the fact that they remain stationary. Motion parallax is a phenomenon that occurs when you are the moving entity, and the trees and mountains appear to be stationary objects, as in this case.
Photo by Usamah Khan on Unsplash
Clouds through an airplane window
Aerial views of overcast sunsets are breathtakingly beautiful from the plane’s window. When traveling at a high altitude in an airplane and looking out the window, you may see how the clouds are moving in the opposite direction from you. According to the perspective of the passenger sitting close to the window, the closer clouds appear to be moving and passing faster than the clouds further away, even after they have remained still. This is nothing more than a phenomenon known as motion parallax, in which closer items appear to move quicker than ones farther away.
Photo by Prabuddha Sharma on Unsplash
Ship
When the ship is sailing in the sea, the crew members on the deck watch the lovely islands going by. For the crew member on the deck, it looks like the islands adjacent to the ship are moving at some higher speed than the sky beyond that island. These islands and sky are static, but as the observer, i.e., the crew on the ship’s deck is moving, which produces the motion parallax, and therefore the nearer island appears to move quicker than the distant sky.
Photo by Gautam Arora on Unsplash
Spacecraft
We observe that the spacecraft travels in the distant space full of stars and many other objects of our galaxy surrounding it. To comprehend the effect of motion parallax in outer space, the observer or a camera as an observer needs to be put inside the spaceship. It is observed that the stars and other objects in the immediate vicinity appear to be traveling at a quicker rate than the stars and galaxies at a further distance.
Image by Christian Bodhi from Pixabay
Skateboard
Skateboarding a famous sport that has been around for a long time. To demonstrate the phenomenon of motion parallax on a skateboard, one may connect a camera to the rear of the skateboard’s deck, which will allow the viewer to understand the phenomenon better. When someone is standing on the deck of a skateboard, they must push the board with one leg for it to get into motion. Once the motion is established by several pushes, motion parallax begins to play a role, which is captured by the camera and displayed on the screen.
It has been noted that the road and side pathways appear to be moving at a faster rate than the shrubs and far trees in the distance. The only thing that moves in this scene is the observer, a camera mounted on the skateboard’s deck, while the road, shrubs, and trees are all stationary things.
Photo by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash
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I am Prajakta Gharat. I have completed Post Graduation in physics in 2020. Currently I am working as a Subject Matter Expert in Physics for Lambdageeks. I try to explain Physics subject easily understandable in simple way.