Impossible objects #39 – Escher’s Belvedere tower in 3D printed form

Professor Gershon Elber at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, has analysed M. C. Escher’s famous images – for example the looping staircase in a tower that is always going up – and found a way to replicate, in a physical 3D model, the tricks of perspective inherent in the images.

The model he produces is actually Belvedere, the slightly inside-out white tower with a ladder climbing improbably from one level to another…. The video below captures the changes in viewpoint necessary to see how such imaginary and impossible structures could be simulated.

Thanks to the blog on the Stratasys (“For a 3D world”) website for showing this. Sam Green writes:

Particularly intriguing is the 3D printed Belvedere, first produced as a 2D drawing in May 1958. In his original work, Escher drew a rectangular three-story building supported by a number of pillars that, at first glance, appears to be plausible. But on close inspection you see that those supporting pillars at the front appear to be supporting the back side of the top floor while those at the back appear to be supporting the front – an obvious paradox. You can see how this is solved in the “real” 3D world – by the clever manipulation of the viewer’s perspective…

On YouTube, the people at Techion write:

Many of the so-called ‘impossible’ drawings of M. C. Escher can be realized as actual physical objects, Prof. Gershon Elber of Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science has done just this. His research team has developed a unique CAD application for designing “impossible” 3D objects, with the 3D printer in Technion’s Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning The Belvedere comes to life in a 3D model.

httpv://youtu.be/cmr4HqjSSw4 Check out the Techion “EscherForReal” page where you can also see smaller – more easily comprehendable – objects, such as the “Penrose Triangle”. Impressive stuff! Previous