Thousands fooled by 'model' London

This picture has fooled thousands of internet users.

One of a series online, it appears to show a detailed, tiny model of a typical London street.

But the scene is real. It is part of an internet craze in which photos are manipulated to make an optical illusion.

By blurring the top and bottom of the picture, the brain is fooled into thinking it is looking down onto a model.

The effect is based on a technique known as tilt shift photography, which uses a special lens to capture images. However, using computer software, the same result can be achieved by simply applying a series of effects to pictures.

"It's become incredibly popular, and now people are trying this out with their own pictures," said Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith, a computer imaging expert at University College London. Thousands of the photos have been posted to photo website flickr.