CN Tower lights actually show slivers of images

The images include a trillium and Mounties on their horses

Torontonians have spent the last five years looking at the colourful CN Tower, but it isn't simply random colours beaming from those elevator shafts.

In addition to turning the Tower different colours to commemorate fallen political figures or special days such Canada Day, the 252 LED lights sometimes show slivers of images.

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And thanks to compositor Avi Salem, we can now see these images are of a group of Mounties and their horses or a trillium or Canadian flags.

"Since [each image pans] across the elevator shaft revealing a sliver of itself, all I had to do was do the opposite," he reads an email sent to Torontoist. "Using compositing software, I created a slit scan affect on the elevator shaft, and then overlaid it on the original footage."

CN Tower operations manager Tom Mellon explained to the Toronto Star that each image is panned over about 10 seconds, but people only see a two-pixel wide section.

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The images have been running for five years now, but few people know about them. When Salem learned about he was curious and set up a camera on his balcony in Liberty Village. He basically put the sections of the picture back together like a puzzle.

"It's really hard to see," said Salem to the Star. "(But) if you understand what's going on in the CN Tower, you can maybe imagine what it would look like pieced together in your head."

Mellon said they use pictures because they take advantage of the system's capability to produce 16.7 million possible colours. The LED lights replaced the incandescent lights in 2007 because they were more cost and energy efficient. When they were first unveiled, Torontonians were treated to a light show accompanied by music. They have changed colour to commemorate Jack Layton's passing, Pride and the Blue Jays new logo among others.

Salem writes on YouTube he is hoping to get better footage and put together a longer version that is more in focus in the future.