Anamorphic Cylinder
Draw on the flat radial canvas and see what the image would look like reflected in a cylindrical mirror placed at the center. The drawing is stretched and distorted — but the reflection corrects it.
About this lab
Anamorphosis is the technique of creating images that appear distorted unless viewed from a specific angle or through a specific optical device. Cylindrical anamorphosis uses a mirrored cylinder: the artist paints a radially stretched image on a flat surface, and when a cylindrical mirror is placed at the designated center point, the viewer looking at the mirror's reflection sees the image restored to correct proportions. The mathematics involves mapping each point on the flat surface to its reflected position on the cylinder's surface, essentially reversing the cylindrical projection.
The technique dates to the Renaissance, with notable examples from the 16th and 17th centuries. Chinese artists of the 18th century created elaborate cylindrical anamorphic paintings, and European practitioners used the technique for everything from political satire to erotic art — images that could be hidden in plain sight, appearing as meaningless swirls until the mirror was placed. The optical principle is straightforward: light from each point on the flat image reflects off the cylinder at an angle determined by the surface normal at that point, following the law of reflection.
In this simulation, the left canvas is your drawing surface. The radial grid shows how the flat image maps to angular positions around the cylinder. When you draw, the reflection preview on the right shows what a viewer would see looking at a cylindrical mirror placed at the center. The mapping transforms polar coordinates (r, theta) on the flat surface to (y, x) in the reflection, with the radial distance determining the vertical position and the angle determining the horizontal position in the reflected image.