An hyperbolic plane exploration of Functional Geometry.
At Booster Conf 2023 Einar W. Høst presented the workshop The Escher school of Fish.
This workshop presents the ideas of Peter Hendersons revised 2002 paper Functional Geometry by guiding participants through a JavaScript implementation.
During the Q&A it was mentioned that Circle Limit III, another work by Escher, is not as easily adapted to the same drawing primitives.
I interjected that the ideas are still applicable, only that the underlying geometry is different.
After a quick consultation, we agreed to challenge ourselves and try to apply Hendersons ideas and create a workshop to reproduce Circle Limit III.
The goal of this project is
A workshop where participants recreate Eschers Circle Limit III by applying the ideas of Functional Geometry to the hyperbolic plane.
In goals of the workshop itself should include
- Having fun: enjoying yourself is a great motivator and fascilitates creating an environment where learning is easier.
- Learning about Functional Geometry: the ideas presented in Functional Geometry are more widely applicable then just for creating complex pictures. Understanding these concepts allow people to apply them in different scenarios.
- Exploring the hyperbolic plane: hyperbolic geometry is the lesser know cousin to Euclidean geometry; the geometry of the plane, where lines and circles live. Exploring the similarities and difference of these geometries is a exciting oppertunity.
Although the goal is clear, the means to reach it aren't as clear. Ideas, thoughts, explorations and experiments are needed before fleshing out the actual workshop.
In order to document these activities the Circle Limit TiddlyWiki is created. A TiddlyWiki is a
unique non-linear notebook for capturing, organising and sharing complex information.
Code can be a vehicle of thought, so creating prototypes is a great way to better understand various aspects of hyperbolic geometry.
We use Make to automate various tasks in this project. Run
make
To kick things off.