ARTICLE IN PRESS
Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523
Chaos and Graphics
The Droste effect image transformation
Jos Leys
Delvauxstraat 34, 2620 Hemiksem, Belgium
Abstract
An image transformation method, first used by the artist M.C. Escher, and described mathematically by H. W.
Lenstra and B. de Smit, is generalized for use in a graphics program. The transformation renders an endless repetition
of a picture in a picture.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Image transformation; Escher; Endless zoom movie
In 1956, Maurits Cornelis Escher completed a
drawing called ‘‘Print Gallery’’ (Fig. 1). The drawing
depicts a young man looking at a print in a gallery that
is deformed almost beyond recognition. There is an
enigmatic white area in the center of the image. In 2003,
a group of mathematicians at Leiden University, led by
Prof. Hendrik Lenstra, succeeded in unraveling the
mathematical structure of the image [1]. Once this
structure was known, they could ‘complete’ the image by
filling in the famous white spot with the help of a
computer algorithm. In doing so, they found that the
drawing repeats itself indefinitely at an ever smaller
scale. This is called the ‘‘Droste effect’’, after an
advertisement for cocoa from the Droste chocolate
company in the Netherlands (Fig. 2). The nurse in the
image holds a package on which there is the same nurse
holding a package, and so on. A summary of Lenstra’s
method was published in a paper [2], and received a lot
of acclaim, not only in academic circles, but also in the
general press.
In this article I will show how Lenstra’s method can
be applied more generally for the transformation of
images, as well as the generation of endless zoom
(progressive magnification) animations.
E-mail address: jos.leys@pandora.be.
0097-8493/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cag.2006.12.001
www.elsevier.com/locate/cag
The transformation consists of three stages, which will
be described as follows:
Stage 1: Logarithmic transformation
The transformation zj-ln z will transform the com-
plex plane into a strip running from N to +N along
the real axis with a width equal to 2p: Any point on the
complex plane can be represented as z ¼ reiy, so
ln z ¼ ln r+iy. As 0pyp2p, all points will be trans-
formed to a strip of width 2p.
However as reiy ¼ rei(y+2pn), for any integer n, any
parallel strip between n2p and (n+1)2p can be
considered as an image of the complex plane: in other
words, ln z will transform the complex plane into an
infinite number of copies.
For our image transformation, let us consider how
ln z transforms the area between a set of concentric
circles of radius r1 and r2. The transformation illustrated
in Figs. 3 and 4 is the transformation zj-ln(z/r1). The
outer circle becomes a vertical line at ln(r2/r1), and the
inner circle is transformed to a vertical line at zero: we
have cut the disc of Fig. 3 along line A0 –A, and bent it
into a rectangle.
Stage 2: Rotation and scaling
The rectangle in Fig. 4 is now rotated so that its
diagonal coincides with the imaginary axis, and the
rectangle is shrunk so that the diagonal is equal to 2p.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
J. Leys / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523
Fig. 1. M.C. Escher’s ‘‘Print Gallery’’ (r 2006 The M.C.
Escher Company, the Netherlands. All rights reserved. Used by
permission.)
Fig. 2. The Droste effect.
In transformation terms, this is equal to zj-zfeia, with
a ¼ tan1 ðlnðr2 =r1 Þ=2pÞ and f ¼ cos a (Fig. 5).
Stage 3: Exponentiation
We will now transform the rectangle of Fig. 5 with
the transformation zj-ez. This produces the image in
517
Fig. 3. Concentric circles.
Fig. 4. Circles transformed by ln z.
Fig. 6. All the sides of the rectangle of Fig. 5 are
transformed into spirals. Notice that points A and A0
now coincide, as they were transformed from 2p  i and
0 respectively, which both transform to 1. This
concludes the basic transform.
Combining all stages, the transformation becomes
zj-(z/r1)b, where b ¼ feia. The original image of two
concentric circles will be transformed into an identical
image by the transformation zj-z/(r2/r1), so for the
transformed image, an identical copy is obtained if z is
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
518 J. Leys / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523

Fig. 5. Rotation and scaling. Fig. 7. Tiling.

Fig. 6. Exponential transformation. Fig. 8. Exponentiation of the tiling.

divided by (r2/r1)b. This means a scaling by j(r2/r1)bj and
a rotation by minus the argument of (r2/r1)b.
We now go back to stage 2. We replicate the rectangle
of Fig. 5 so that it tiles the plane, and then do the stage 3
transformation again. Rectangle ‘E’ in Fig. 7 is the
original rectangle of Fig. 5, and is transformed by
stage 3 to the area ‘E’ in Fig. 8. Rectangles ‘G’ and ‘H’
will also be transformed to area ‘E’. Rectangle ‘F’ will be
transformed to area ‘F’ in Fig. 8. We thus obtain an
infinite number of replicas of the original image,
transformed so that they tile in spiral form in a seamless
fashion. All the replicas are self-similar: area ‘E’ in Fig. 8
can be enlarged and rotated to cover area ‘F’ exactly.
The configuration of stage 2, where the rectangle is
rotated and scaled so that the diagonal is vertical, and
equals 2p is not the only one possible. All possible
configurations are shown in Fig. 9. If the rotation is 01
or 1801 and the scaling factor equals 1, the transforma-
tion will produce an infinite number of concentric copies
of the original image. In all other cases, the scaling
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
J. Leys / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523 519

Fig. 9. Possible configurations.

Fig. 11. Image 1, transformed.

Fig. 10. Image 1, original.

equals f ¼ cos a, and the rotation equals a, 1801a,

1801+a, or a. Fig. 12. Image 2, original.
In summary, the transformation logic is as follows:

 Choose r1 and r2 (a slight adaptation is necessary to
allow circle centers different from the origin).
 Calculate a, f, and b.
 Calculate b ln(z/r1) for the area between the circles,
tile the resulting rectangle, and finally calculate
eb lnðz=r1 Þ for all pixels.
The transformation was implemented in Ultrafractal
[3], a graphics program that features user-defined algo-
rithms, and some examples are shown in Figs. 10–15.
The algorithm can be adapted to allow for non-
concentric circles, or even non-concentric polygons. The
area between the two squares in Fig. 16a is transformed
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
520 J. Leys / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523
Fig. 13. Image 2, transformed.
Fig. 14. Image 3, original.
by the logarithmic transformation into the shaded area
in Fig. 16b. This area is then tiled taking into account
the angle offset between the two squares. After
exponentiation, Fig. 16c is obtained. With a rotation
of the tiling after the logarithmic transformation, the
outcome is Fig. 16d.
Fig. 17 shows an arrangement whereby the smaller
square is off-center vs. the large square. We now need to
Fig. 15. Image 3, transformed.
calculate the fixed point of the transformation. CL is the
center of large square; CS is the center of small square; y
is the offset angle between the two squares, and m is the
ratio of the side of the small square vs. the large square.
The fixed point is given by
ðC L  C s Þ
CF ¼ CL þ .
ð1  meiy Þ
The logarithmic transform then takes the form
ln((zCF)/a) with a ¼ the shortest distance from CF to
the edge of the small square. The overall transform
becomes z ! ððz  C F Þ=aÞb , where b ¼ feia, with f ¼
2p cosðaÞ=ð2p  yÞ and a ¼ tan1 ðlnðmÞ=2pÞ.
An identical copy is achieved through a scaling and
rotation by the absolute value and the argument of
iðafÞ
mf = cosðfÞe , with f ¼ tan1 ðy= lnðmÞÞ.
The procedure is similar for rectangles, or other
polygons. Figs. 18–21 show some examples. One can
zoom in or out on the transformed images indefinitely.
The value of b can be calculated from the size ratio of
the small image vs. the large, and this allows to calculate
the magnification and rotation needed to obtain an
image that is identical to the start image. A limited
number of frames thus suffices to obtain and endless
zoom movie, provided the video file is shown in loop
mode. Fig. 22 shows frames from such a zoom movie (a
‘‘Droste effect’’ movie), based on a vintage airline
poster. More examples can be seen at the author’s
website [4].
Professor Lenstra and his team proved that the M.C.
Escher Print Gallery image has a ratio r2/r1 ¼ 256. This
means that the rotation angle for stage 2 is a ¼
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

Fig. 16. (a–d) Transformation of concentric squares.

Fig. 17. (a–d) Transformation of non-concentric squares.

 ARTICLE IN PRESS
522 J. Leys / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523

Fig. 20. Original photo.

Fig. 18. ‘‘LW346’’ by M.C. Escher ‘‘(r 2006 The M.C. Escher
Company, the Netherlands. All rights reserved. Used by
permission.)

Fig. 21. Original photo, transformed.

tan1 ðlnðr2 =r1 Þ=2pÞ or 41.4291, and the scale factor

Fig. 19. ‘‘LW346’’, transformed.
f ¼ cos a or 0.749767.
With b ¼ feia, j(r2/r1)bj ¼ 22.5836, and the argument
of (r2/r1)b is 157.625591, so an identical image is
obtained by zooming by a factor of 22.5836 and a
rotation by 157.625591.
It is amazing that M.C. Escher drew his Print Gallery
by intuition, as he was ‘‘untrained in mathematics’’ [5].
Yet, his image is very close to the computer-generated
image, based on the above algorithm. It is also known
that Escher spent a very long time on this drawing, and
it makes one wonder what he could have done with a
computer. On the other hand, no computer-generated
image can match the charm of M. C. Escher’s hand-
drawn artworks.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
J. Leys / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 516–523 523

Fig. 22. (a–e) Frames from a ‘Droste effect’ animation.

References [3] Ultrafractal by Frederik Slijkerman /http://www.ultrafractal.

[1] Lenstra H, de Smith B. Escher and the Droste effect,
/http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/S.
[2] de Smit B, Lenstra Jr HW. The mathematical structure of
Escher’s Print Gallery. Notices of the AMS 2003;50(4):
446–51 /http://www.ams.org/notices/200304/fea-escher.pdfS.
comS.
[4] Jos Leys, The Droste effect /http://www.josleys.comS.
[5] The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, School_
of_Mathematics_and_Statistics, University of St. Andrews,
Scotland, /http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/
Mathematicians/Escher.htmlS.