New method for rendering impossible shapes

Hong Kong specialist Tai-Pang Wu has developed the most realistic method for rendering impossible shapes to date . Perhaps someday in the virtual space of computer games it will be possible to render stairs in the Escher style , and they will look realistic from any angle, as well as under different lighting conditions. An impossible staircase will even roll the ball under the influence of gravity.

By the way, there was one impossible object in Diablo II, but it can only be viewed from a single angle.

Everyone likes optical illusions, and considering them is an excellent exercise for spatial thinking, but, according to experts, it will be difficult to find commercial application of this technology.

Since impossible figures cannot exist in three-dimensional space, several special techniques are used for rendering. As a result of this, according to the developer, the object "like an amoeba" smoothly flows from one state to another.







The results of Modeling and Rendering of Impossible Figures are published in ACM Transactions on Graphics (ToG), vol. 29, No. 2, Article 13, March 2010. The text of the article can be downloaded in pdf , and the demo video is packed in zip .