Generation of Escher-Like Rosette Drawings

“Smaller and Smaller” is a woodcut by the Dutch artist M.C. Escher in which the lizards designed in a rosette tiling approach the centre by geometric series. This paper proposes an easy method to generate drawings similar to “Smaller and Smaller”. To this end, the geometrical structure of rosette tilings is first considered from the viewpoint of the symmetry group in detail. This gives a simple way to construct rosette tilings. Then, a one-to-one mapping between kite-shaped and square regions is presented to embed a pre-designed template into kite-shaped tiles of rosette tilings. Next, the algorithms for rendering the rosette tilings are discussed. Finally, some detailed implements of producing rosette drawings are specified. The presented examples show that by using the existing rich wallpaper templates, the method proposed in the paper can generate a variety of Escher-like rosette drawings.