That strange mirror picture **The guy emailed me about it***

[911paramedic]

I emailed him about it and here is what happened:

At 14:45 03/07/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>I am a member of a computer forum and somebody happened across your
>page. We have been debating long and hard about how that picture was
>done. Some people are saying it was manipulated with a graphics program
>and others think all with mirrors.
>
>Care to explain it? Please?
>
>David

A friend gave a talk on the mathematics of Escher's picture "print gallery"
and we spent a pleasant evening of beer and programming hacking
together some custom software to produce that image. So no mirrors,
but also (as far as I know) no graphics program that you can buy
either.

Andrew
************************************************

The picture

The original thread

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

link to pic?

 

[bmacd]

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
link to pic?

-=bmacd=-

 

[aphex]

Interesting.... Where pyonir to say hes wrong again?

j/k bro

 

[Czar]

 

[911paramedic]

Originally posted by: Czar
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=822077
repost

Hmmm, that link is in my post buddy.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: 911paramedic

Originally posted by: Czar
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=822077
repost

Hmmm, that link is in my post buddy.

brain not working right now, sorry

 

[Night201]

I think he just held a mirror on his lap in front of another mirror (on a wall for example), tilted the mirror on his lap, and cropped out the first reflection of the mirror on the right. I bet I could do that. I just don't have a big mirror, only a small one (like the one on his lap).

I don't think he built some kind of custom program...besides, look how he talked..."hacking"...hacked what?

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

perhaps the non-visible mirror is round, or otherwise distorted.

amorphic art was first developed int he 1800's by using non-flat (sometimes non-parrallel) reflective surfaces to aid the artist in 'seeing' the distorted image.

 

[Cyberian]

A friend gave a talk on the mathematics of Escher's picture "print gallery"
and we spent a pleasant evening of beer and programming

Aha!

A nearly invincible combination!!

Escher was an amazing artist.

 

[crypticlogin]

I think he just held a mirror on his lap in front of another mirror (on a wall for example), tilted the mirror on his lap, and cropped out the first reflection of the mirror on the right.

That mirror is subtlely curved. That's some damn fine photocropping if it's the case (and I don't believe it is).

I don't think he built some kind of custom program...besides, look how he talked..."hacking"...hacked what?

Intransitive verb, 2a.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

The visible mirror (the one the guy is holding) is normal. That is, it is flat with square corners.

The image rotation AND its distorted perspective is because the reflecting, non-visible mirror (its whats reflecting the image back onto the visible mirror) is non-planar. I bet that this mirror is convex. This would lead to an exagerated shrinking of the reflectied image.

 

[notfred]

I swear that none of you can read. He said he wrote software to make the picture, you there's still this argument over how the mirrors were done. You can't make a continuous edge like that with mirrors.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

LOL, no i actually read the thread, i just mis-interpretted it. I am obviously very very wrong with my mirror theory. Here is an email i got back:

At 21:45 03/07/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>I am assuming you get lots of email asking how you got the resulting image.
>If you could just let me know if I am 'warm'.


Freezing.


>Obviously, there is an unseen mirror reflecting the image back to the
>mirror that is visible.


No.


>I think that the unseen mirror is spherically convex, like those used in
>supermarkets to give fish-eye views of the back of the store.


No.


>Finally, you used a fish eye lense on the camera and cropped out all but
>the lower left quadrant of the resulting image.


No.


>thanks and nice page.


Thank you!


Andrew


Ah, the joy I must of given him.