Impossible Shape Generator
Interactive 3D Illusion Interface
2025Completed
A real-time TouchDesigner interface that turns impossible figures into controllable 3D structures: shapes warp, multiply and react to sound under the viewer's hand.
A workshop project that treats Penrose-style impossible figures as something to operate rather than just look at. Static optical paradoxes become manipulable 3D structures that shift in real time.
The pipeline starts with choosing paradoxes for their structural contradiction. AI tools then convert the 2D figures into spatial geometry, which runs in TouchDesigner with a particle system, a text and background generator, audio reactivity and a slider interface. A minimal control panel can reconfigure a whole illusion with one gesture.
The controls cover colour shifting, shape selection, boundary distortion and noise deformation, four-dimensional replication arrays, particle behaviours (falling, levitating, rising), twisting and morphing, live background text, and reactivity to low, mid and high frequencies, kick and snare. Made with two collaborators at the Shifting Boundaries in Graphics workshop at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan), and presented on 27 November 2025.
Made with Chen Wanghan and Bindusmita Mitra.
- 01Concept and paradox selection
- 02AI-assisted 3D geometry generation
- 03TouchDesigner real-time system
- 04Audio reactivity
- 05Interface and parameter design
- 06Team project with two collaborators
