A Casual Encounter

Before popularizing the Magic Eye pictures, Tom Baccei was the U.S. manager of Pentica Systems, a British technology company that sold in-circuit emulators. But his whole life was turned upside down when he stumbled upon a magazine called Stereo World. It was there he saw one of Tyler’s first autostereograms.

Baccei was fascinated by the picture and asked Bob Salitsky for some help to design an original autostereogram for a Pentica Systems ad. Later on, Baccei met with the 3D artist Cheri Smith, who convinced him of the artwork-potential that existed in autostereograms.