Escher 

ABSTRACT:

Escher is a system for modeling visually rich designs directly on the geometry of a 3D mesh imported from Alias Power Animator 8.x.  Escher does this by implementing a concept called Geometric Substitution pioneered by Dr. Andrew Glassner (now) of Microsoft Graphics Research Group.  It is very simple :  Any mesh is made of triangles.  To model a design on its geometry, you replace its triangles with a pattern.  This pattern is not a texture, but an another collection of triangles.  The resultant mesh thus has its integrity maintained and the arrangement of its triangles suggest a design to the eye.  The number of ways in which you can arrange a set of triangles is infinite and a pattern is defined as a particular arrangement of triangles -- therefore the user can create an infinite variety of patterns,  apply them to the mesh in layers and thus produce an infinite variety of designs.  

You can download a fully functional copy of Escher for Alias Power Animator 8.x here.  The user guide is available online and with the distribution as well. 

You can see some designs I created with Escher in the image gallery

Here are two online demos of Escher:

The first demo is a 2D demo where you model designs on polygons.   It is called Escher | 2D and is available hereIt requires a Java enabled browser to run and runs on all platforms.  I would recommend you use Netscape Communicator 4.x (on all platforms including the PC) or Microsoft IE 4.x (on the PC) for watching this demo.

The second demo is a Java + VRML demo where you model designs on five platonic solids, a sphere and the CG Sex Symbol : Teapot!.  It is called Escher | 3D and is available here.  Escher | 3D requires a PC (sorry to the SGI people and people from other platforms), Netscape Communicator 4.04 (and above) or Microsoft IE 4.0 (and above) and Cosmo Player 2.1  If you dont have Cosmo Player, you can download it here.

PLATFORMS SUPPORTED:

IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4
Windows NT

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS USED:

Java Development Kit from Sun Microsystems Inc
CodeWright for Windows 95 | NT from Premia Software Inc

 

Best viewed in Netscape 4.x or IE 4.x @ 1024 | 768 | 16-bit colors
Please send bouquets or brickbats to sjagan@hotmail.com
Copyright (c) 1998 Jaganathan Sampath
All Rights Reserved


This page was last updated on: December 9, 1998
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