April 4, 2026
Check the box, open the paradox
Show HN: M. C. Escher spiral in WebGL inspired by 3Blue1Brown
Brain-melting browser spiral wows, then “Checkboxgate” breaks out
TLDR: A browser demo turns any picture into an Escher-like spiral illusion, inspired by a famous math explainer. Viewers loved the mind-bend but grumbled about hidden controls, pushing for clearer UI and the ability to use Escher’s “Print Gallery” or upload their own images—copyright permitting.
A trippy new browser demo recreates an M.C. Escher-style spiral—think an image folding into itself forever, inspired by 3Blue1Brown—and the crowd went wild… until they couldn’t find the ON switch. The top vibe on the thread? Awe smashed into confusion. One early PSA screamed that the effect “requires tapping a checkbox,” which was apparently hiding in plain sight, and the comments turned into Checkboxgate.
Then came the usability saga. Another user praised the visuals but admitted it took a while to figure out the controls, advising folks to drag the “swipe” bar or hit Autoplay—and even suggested making the little up/down icons clickable. Cue the chorus: “Make it obvious!” Meanwhile, Escher superfans demanded the legendary “Print Gallery” image, while others pitched a crowd-pleasing compromise: let us upload our own pics. That sparked soft drama—copyright jitters vs. feature wishlist—with everyone agreeing the effect deserves more playtime and fewer hidden levers.
For the non-mathy: this illusion turns a picture into a spiral by briefly switching how the image is measured (cartesian to polar), doing a simple twist, then switching back. The result is magic. The community verdict? Stunning art-meets-math—but please, for the love of Escher, make the buttons obvious and let us bring our own images.
Key Points
- •The article demonstrates creating an Escher-style spiral from a Droste image using WebGL.
- •A basic Droste image is formed by repeatedly overlaying scaled-down copies until below display resolution.
- •Transforming the image to polar coordinates reveals periodicity (angle and radius) and unwraps concentric circles into horizontal lines.
- •Rotating (and scaling) in polar space merges rows so a single instance runs diagonally, producing a spiral when mapped back to Cartesian.
- •The workflow is compared to using the Fourier transform: transform, perform a simple operation, then transform back; WebGL shaders are provided.