One word. Totally Awesome. Oops.

If you can draw portraits and other things well, you can do this by first placing the reflecting cylinder on a designated spot on your paper and creating a drawing while looking at the cylinder to see where the pencil goes. Takes some time to get used to, but for any drawing artist it is definitely something to explore.

quite a thing! ...maaan

I'm not sure if the difference here is that a digital camera is (might be?) involved, but these have been around for many many years. I first became aware of them from an issue of World Magazine (National Geographic's kids magazine) in the late 70s-early 80s, and they portrayed them in an antiqued fashion. They also had projects to make your own, and while some (like these) used a cylinder, there are others that are drawn to use a mirrored cone.

Done in history to hide allegiences with individuals or groups. The painting can look like a landscape, but it can be a portrait of a king, or leader.

Awesome! This isn't actually new though. There was a computer book or magazine from the 80's that discussed this, the mathematics, and gave some sample code that could convert normal coordinates to cylindrical ones for drawing these programatically. I wish I could remember exactly where I saw it.

That's so genius, maybe some day I'll try my hand at those!

Wow, that's amazing!

Who did these drawings? Where did this story come from?

These are usually called anamorphic images, although the name is also applied to other forms of distortion.

It is historically famous as a way of hiding a picture of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Some striking modern images by the Hungarian artist Orovitz cann be found at:
http://members.aol.com/webcarlos2/Optical/Artists/Orovitz.htm

Instructions for making your own, and a link to some software to do it for you are at:
http://www.mathsyear2000.org/explorer/anamorphic/cylindrical-mirror-anamorphosis/

For other forms of anamorphic distorion, try this page as a lead-in to more fascinating examples:
http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/2005/06/anamorphic_pave.html

Sorry, my browser wouldn't give me "Preview" but went straight through when I hit "Post" and found a spelling mistake simultaneously.

Very nice effect!

You can do that in Photoshop

This is better than the time I saw the image of the Taco Bell chihuahua reflected off a kosher bagel dog.

Wow. Jim is so amazing! From Photoshop he can create an image with a physical glass cylinder on it. He can create physical matter from digital software. I don't remember that option in Photoshop.

I'm impressed, but I'm also thinking there's a tool built in to the photo editing software that lets someone distort an image with a couple clicks. What do you think?

I had a Rick Wakeman (of Yes) vinyl that had one of these on the cover - I think it was the album Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

The album came with a flat square of silver plastic to make the tube with and if you put the tube in place and looked down the centre there was another image reflected on the inside.

I had forgotten about that album, I hope I can get a CD of it!

Update - Found out tha RW album was 'No Earthly Connection' and I probably wont find it on CD but can get a vinyl copy from Amazon for about £50!! (Ouch)

I think I'll be digging out my old vinyls and crossing my fingers!

Anyone with an MP3 to share? Write me at Rolf@ the provided web address, pls. (Sorry to go off topic)

W . o . W !!!!!!!!!!!!!

very nice think il have a go

wah its nice but hard to build .............

excellent work

complex, skillful, not entirely impossible, but very well done. wkd!

great job !!!!!

When linking to a larger image, the image really should be LARGER!

JIm ur a dikg#head these kind of drawings take a long time to produse and you simply say you can make them in potoshop well can u do 1 den??

very impressive but very confusing

It can be done a bit easier this way...

Take a cone first, paint any image on it.

Roll the cone on a paper so paint sticks to the paper, it will rotate as if a car turns if one wheel is slower and other is faster when turning...

Then take a cylinder of same radius as cone's base side...

You will see the same image drawn on the paper...

xXx even if he can't do one, at least he can spell.

Jim, Jim,JIm, I think what you can do in photoshop is turn a regular photo or drawing INTO a cylinder...this is quite different my naive little friend

lame

these pictures remind me of a young John Stamos or early enrique inglesias, as the once world rnound backstreet boys said, I never wanna here you say I wat it that way, which reflects the meaning of these pictures in a whole

these thins r alrite but u need loads more 2 impress me!

twould be tough to do

These are fun. My aunt had some reflective cylindrical vases on her table this Christmas, and I sketched out a Christmas tree in this style. You can do it by eye rather easily when you get the hang of it. Just look into the cylinder and mark points on your paper that look like they make the proper lines for your drawing, then connect them with appropriate curves.

The science museum in Seattle had a great big cylinder with a chalkboard beneath that you could draw on. Fun! I'd like to work out the mathematical projection so I could transform a given picture into a cylindrical or conical projection. Neat!

oh nice!!!!!!!!!!

My Co worker 'little' kevin thinks your work is AWESOME!
Though we have alot of work to do and need his help, so can you take down your site for the next couple of hours so we can get back to work?
Thanks

Hello, I were moved with this image greatly at this time that was a Japanese

THIS BLOWS YOU A-HOLES!

um its a cup.

Take care of it and keep it on the road!

i did this in school b4 and to Dmitriy Chernoshey: ummm, no its not like that. u draw your picture on a numbered graph paper. then u use a special stretched-out graph paper and copy your picture on2 it and make sure the numbers correspond. it may be confusing now but if u see it in person you'll understand.

Interesting, but navigation system is a little bit confusing

I can do this with any picture in photoshop send me a link here and I will do it with yours. It is cool and has been around since the 17th century. Now we can do it with a digital image.

can you contact me garZon?

There's one on Rick Wakemans "No Earthly Connection" LP,
Snazzy "Free Gift"

woah, cool

To Hai
Well, I do not require graph papers to draw, I use my eyes and the reflective object. Just like Futureboy here. Although your method seems logical, it is not the only one. I sometimes do fun things while faux painting for customers and one of the general methods used is "tromp d'oeil", or "fool the eye", which includes effects presented here. I recently painted a small tabletop with a portrait of a customer's family member visible on a cylindrical chrome vase, it later became his birthday gift. Pretty expensive one for them, too, I might add.

An easy way to do this would be to get a string, tie it to the pencil, and put a drawing pin into where the centre of the cylinder would be, ad tie the other end of the string to that, and then you have a long range compass. Then draw all your horizontal lines with your compass and the vertical lines would just be straight. Then, you put the cylinder where the drawing pin was, and there you have it! though i dont know how to do the curves... but at least you can draw pic 4...

that is just weird. i dont think i have ever seen that before

i have to admit this site is amazing it is phenominal that people do this andhow accurately they did it

This is a great mix of distortion and mirror usage. As you can tell that just certain details had to be added to make the face show up on the cylinder while also making the original picture make sense. This is a great work of art and there has definately been some good brains working here.

2 words totaly awsome

there's got to be like, a complicated mathematical equation involved for that. it's awesome, though.

this are great images... i specially enjoyed the one of julius vern... you could do this by puting a cylinder over a normal picture and coping the image that you see in the cylinder... its something every artist should definitly try...by the way i have been browsing through this page thanks to ma illusion of the day widget in my mac and i absolutly loove the page...great job guys and greetings from mexico.

it's called animorphic art, and it's awesome
One way to do it is draw a picture on a grid that's marked A, B, C... on one side and 1, 2, 3... on the other. Then draw your picture. Then draw your picture ona curved paper with another grid, using the regular one to help you draw

yea they did this on a show called Treasure Hunters...its kewl

cool