Random dot stereograms were invented by Bela Julesz, an engineer then at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Julesz wanted to see if people could see stereoscopic depth using figures that contained no recognizable form. We can, as demonstrated by stereopsis from these specially constructed stereograms.

Building on the work of Julesz, Christopher Tyler (Smith Kettlewell Eye Reserch Insitute) invented what he called autostereograms. Tyler's basic approach has been modified to create the "magic eye posters" that have been popular recently.

Chapter 8 contains lots of figures illustrating depth cues, and you can see even more demonstrations (including some animations) at this website.

Alcohol impairs depth perception, and this news story describes the research underscoring this impairment and one reason why it might occur.

The web is loaded with pages containing photographs of natural scenes in which depth is vividly portrayed by one or more of the monocular depth cues described in Chapter 8. Just do a Google search for depth perception, or for starters take a look at this website.