I'm generally not a huge fan of animated anything on webpages. But if it looks as good as that, and actually shows something useful (as opposed to something just moving), then I can probably get my bias past it.
Like David, I've very occasionally done similar images, to generate a 3D view of a spacecraft's orbit. It was easier to generate a whole mass of images and then glue them together with some command line scripting, than work out how to render it all using some sort of VRML plugin (which are badly supported at the best of times), or hand code a load of image rendering in Javascript.
Incidentally - if I have that in my peripheral vision - like when I'm typing up here, and it is down there, I can get it to go backwards. Doesn't work if I look right at it though.
Yep, Necker reversal, related to the
Necker Cube. When there's no other hints, you can make a simple 3D stick cube flip between two orientations by concentrating on different parts of it. By only looking peripherally at the image, you're brain can't/doesn't see many of the other depth hints, like shading and glints, so is prone to flipping between differing perspectives, in this case allowing the opposite sense of rotation.
