Get the latest tech news

Mary Queen of Scots Channel Anamorphosis, a 3D Simulation

I’ve been going down some odd rabbit holes recently while researching my free online book-in-progress The Lost Art of Logarithms. Although the book is mostly focused on the history, use, meaning, and importance of logarithms, I believe that even histories of science and mathematics profit by being placed within political, cultural, social, and religious contexts.

Although Napier had been working on this book for some years, it was given special urgency by the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588, which had as its goal the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth. While reading about Mary Queen of Scots, I came upon a reference to a channel anamorphosis painting (also known as a turning picture or a tabula scalata) on display in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, so of course I immediately thought about creating a 3D simulation. I found an article entitled"The Mathematics of the Channel Anamorphosis" that concluded that the prisms in the Mary Queen of Scots painting used angles of 45°, 45°, and 90°, and that’s how I constructed the panel.

Get the Android app