Possible Touching of “Impossible”

Pavol ELIÁŠ A. FERKO, Marek ZIMÁNYI Ján ČARNICKÝ, Dušan

Comenius University Comenius University CHORVÁT, Anton MATEÁŠIK
SK-842 48 Bratislava SK-842 48 Bratislava International Laser Center
Slovakia Slovakia
SK-842 48 Bratislava, Slovakia
pavol@dunako.com ferko, zimanyi@sccg.sk
carnicky,dusan,tono@ilc.sk

ABSTRACT took this as a challenge and attempted (successfully) to recreate a

The Cuboid by Maurice Cornelius Escher is considered as non-
existing, impossible object. We have modelled, animated and
rendered this “non-existing object” using even a stereolitograph.
General Terms
Measurement, Experimentation, Human Factors, Verification.
3D model of cuboid - cube in "impossible" set up. The results
achieved with fully custom build software for all modeling,
animation and playback (virtually no 3D technology was
available at that time :-) keep amazing people many years
afterwards. BTW a real world model of the cuboid was
constructed out of wires - unfortunately the model hasn't survived
the attention it generated and it has felt apart...

1. MOTIVATION AND INTRODUCTION

Human perception and understanding can be challenged by the
question if a given 2D image can be a projection of a real 3D
object. According to Bakhtinian understanding to web graphics
[1], there are two fundamental cases: double meaning of one
image or one image for two views. The Cuboid by Martin Escher
is considered as non-existing object [3]. We have modelled,
animated, and rendered this “non-existing object” using even a
stereolitograph.

2. STATIC IMAGES
The static image of cuboid by Maurice Cornelius Escher belongs
to ambiguous stills giving ambiguous understanding. As there is
no contradiction in the nature, the paradoxes live in human
understanding. The original litograph Belvedere can be found at
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/E/escher/escher_belvedere.jpg.
html.
The idea of modeling cuboid as one of the "impossible" objects
was inspired by a video from EUROGRAPHICS 1991
conference, where the whole model of Escher's Belvedere was Figure 1: Cuboid by Pavol Elias [2], inspired by The
reconstructed by Ivo Kos. Being motivated by peers Pavol Elias Belvedere litograph by M. C. Escher (1958).
The static views given in Figure 1 have the animated (and
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for interactive) counterpart at http://www.dunako.com/pavol/cuboid/.
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not The cuboid shows what we see as a cube in impossible and
made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear
contradictory setup. Many people are pretty confident that such
this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or
republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific objects are not possible. Obviously they are not right - such
permission and/or a fee. paradoxical objects can indeed exist in 3D world. To show them
SCCG’05, May 12–14, 2005, Budmerice, Slovakia. they are wrong (and provoke their visual perception some more)
Copyright Comenius University was a goal of the student project [2].
 One of the basic ideas in modeling "impossible" objects is to 6. REFERENCES
divide figures into consistent parts, that means to reduce a [1] ELIAS, P. – FERKO, A. - GRABNER, M. 2003. Bakhtinian
paradox. Reduced figures which don't contain paradox can be Understanding to Web Graphics. Pp. 135-142 in Cyber
easily modeled using standard methods. The second step consist Worlds 2003 Proceedings edited by KUNII, T. L. et al.
of merging all parts to the final (paradoxically looking) model. In ISBN 0-7695-1922-9. Singapore: IEEE CS December 2003.
case of cuboid it is easy to place both "bases" of the cube into the
proper "cuboid" position . The vertical "edges" they join the [2] ELIAS, P. 1992. Cuboid, A study in reconstruction of
corresponding vertices. The wire edges are then expanded to form paradoxical objects. Methods of Realistic Displaying the
a solid structure. This is slightly more involved, but it can be done Paradoxical Objects. (in Slovak). Student Scientific
by keeping geometric relationships between adjacent vertices. Conference Awarded Submission. Bratislava: Comenius
The faces of the resulting object are not planar, they are twisted. University 1992. http://www.dunako.com/pavol/cuboid/
[3] PAPPAS, T. 1989. The Joy of Mathematics. San Carlos:
3. PLASTIC RENDERED CUBOID Wide World Publishing 1989. ISBN 0-933174-65-9. (Slovak
For educational purposes at Comenius University, Pavol Elias translation Potesenie z matematiky.)
provided data courtesy to render a set of 3D instances of cuboid
with International Laser Center labs. The 3D tangible model was
generated using a 3D output device stereolithograph LS-250
(NICTL, Shatura). The layer thickness was set to 0.3 mm. The
model was generated by curing of the IPLIT 1 /epoxy
photosensitive resin/ using He/Cd laser LGK-30 (18mW/325nm).
For used stereolithography apparatus, the 3D model must be in
STL format, that is converted into slices (*.sli format) before the
stereolithography process (Figures 2, 3, 4).
As the photopolymer changes from liquid to solid, the
deformations between layers occur due to stain stress emergent
from density changes. The distortions are mostly determined by
the degree of cure and part orientation. The degree of cure
depends on the laser power, its speed of movement and can be
affected by temperature and aging of the photopolymer.
Not at least, the model can be deformed if it is weakly supported Figure 2: Suport structure generation in Magics RP.
by support structures, needed for its creation. Helping structures (red) designed by Jan Čarnický.

In our case the distortions are probably the result of old

photopolymer, lower laser exposition and lower temperature in
stereolithography chamber.

4. CONCLUSION
Historically, this is the first stereolitographic output used in
computer graphics classes in Slovakia. Rendering itself
caused some problems, analogous to 2D paper jamming
(Figure 5). At SCCG, they are the first haptic objects Figure 3: 3D analogy of 2D paper jamming. Photo by
Marek Zimanyi.
exhibited. We use the 3D copies and animations of cuboid
to support the imagination of university students with high
efficiency. The litograph inspiration from 1958 became a
stereolitograph in 2005, 43 year later.
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our thanks to ACM for templates they had developed. The work
of the second and third author has been partly supported by a
VEGA grant Virtual Environments for WWW No. 1/0174/03. The
work of the last three autors has been supported by Slovak APVT Figure 4: The photo by Marek Zimanyi of “impossible”.
Grant No. APVT-20-014602.