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MacDonalds Spiderwick Chronicles Toy.

AgeGap

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MacDonalds Spiderwick Chronicles Toy given away with happy meals in the UK consists of a "lens" and an LED. When you hold the lens up to your eye and look at the lit LED about a foot away you get a grid of repeated small images.
Anybody know how this effect works or what it is called?

The effect works with other light sources and the lens is a flat piece of plastic with a matrix of what looks like dots on it.
 
If what you're describing is what I'm thinking of, it's called a fly-eye lens. It's actually a collection of individual lenses, like what you would find in a kaleidoscope. Each lens gives its own image.
 
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The "Seeing Stone" contains a holographic image, revealed when looking through it into the light in the toy.

I haven't seen one up close yet but this is my understanding.
 
No, it's not the fly-eye lens. I've seen these before implemented in a flat sheet of plastic. There's some kind of microscopic grating on the plastic that gives the effect.
 
At a Christmas church service a few years ago, my niece and nephew were given these paper/plastic eyeglasses to view lights through. The glasses were the cardboard style you often see with cheap 3-D glasses, but the lenses were apparently thin sheets of clear plastic. When you'd look at a point light source while wearing the glasses, you'd then see an array of angel shapes all around, centered on the light source. Looking at the lights on a Christmas tree presented a colorful mob of angels. It is the same effect, though I don't know how they work.
 
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I got the chance to look through one when I was in Edmonton last weekend visiting my niece and nephews.

There is a little red LED on the toy, and when viewed (at the right angle) through the lens,
a face appears.


So whichever one I looked through is holographic (or a close facsimile), not fly-eye/refraction/whatever.
 
This is the toy. I did try google but the limited info I have puts me at a disadvantage.
 
And this is the lens.



As part of my googling and came across this. Some parents think the red light is a laser.
 
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