Andrzej Zdziarski

Art based on optical illusions has accompanied the everyday life of a human being since ancient times, until today. Primarily, it played a specific role as an artistic game and manifested the artists’ own mastery, while often playing the serviceable role of an artistic advertisement. This study presents a detailed definition of anamorphic images together with their precise classification, and provides a description of the methods used for their construction. The problems discussed here have been presented on a historical background. The examples of particularly chosen anamorphic images have been presented together with their visualised images. The theoretical background, how one can create such anamorphic images, provides the basis for further design and development of anamorphic images to be created both in an urban space of a town, and in the interiors of public use.

The aim of this paper is to present a practical construction for some cylindrical anamorphic images. The method is based on the analytic properties of reflective anamorphic image construction – topics which have been discussed in previous papers. This time, the authors deal with the analytical analysis of a transformation that is applied in order to obtain an anamorphic image, and provide an innovative digital notation of the reflective transformation discussed. The analytical model described here allows us to generate a cylindrical anamorphic image of any object that is represented in the form of a set of parametric equations. Some example anamorphic images together with their counter-images reflected in the surface of a cylindrical mirror will be presented here. The method of construction described enables the development of any design project of an anamorphic image in the urban planning environment and within the interiors of public spaces.

The work presented here is a continuation of the earlier discussion undertaken by the author on the definition of geometric transformation and principles of creation and graphical representation of anamorphic images [3]. A specific method based on optics has been used to explain the method of creating complex geometrical anamorphic images with the inclusion of those parts of images that usually cover difficult deformations. The ideal scheme for an optical device which can be used for generating transformations of real life images into anamorphic images for this type of reflective anamorphic transformations has been developed. The validity and correctness of the geometrical and optical analysis of this type of transformation have been demonstrated in practice. A prototype of an optical device has been developed and used for the realization of this type of transformation and called the “Anamorphot”. The image created using the Anamorphot proves validity of the theory of creation of anamorphic images as presented in earlier publications.