A few weeks back, I saw a hackaday article about puzzle boxes, and watched the video in which [Kagen Sound] explains how he makes his puzzle boxes.
Around the 6:36 minute mark, he explains how he makes something he calls the “Cafe Wall” shifting illusion. Being a beginning woodworker, I was intrigued by the process, but also by what you can do with a seemingly simple pattern.
The pattern he makes is made up of a basic 2×3 block with 5 diagonal stripes:
This pattern is combined into a long strip by combining them on the short side with alternating directions, to create a crude wave pattern.
He then makes this into a surface by adding 5 of these strips on top of each other, each even row flipped:
By shifting the two even strips, various interesting patterns emerge
Other shifts are also possible:
Other somewhat regular shifts are also possible:
I’m really impressed how such a simple pattern can be used to create such complicated designs!
Using a few vertical shifts as well, you can get even more interesting patterns.
There’s probably a few other patterns that are really interesting, from one (or two, if you don’t count mirroring) simple tiles.