Vega Bulge: a checkerboard that swells into a sphere
Vega Bulge takes a plain black-and-white checkerboard and pushes its middle toward you, in the tradition of the swelling grids of 1960s op art. A Lens distortion field at Spatial depth 75 enlarges the central squares and squeezes the outer ones, so the flat grid reads as a sphere pressing up through the surface. On Breathe, the bulge relaxes to about half its strength and swells again every 6 seconds.
Make it yours
Deepen the breath
Movement intensity decides how far the bulge relaxes. At 55 it sinks to about half strength; push it to 100 and the checkerboard flattens almost completely before the sphere swells back up.
Ripple the squares
Wave distortion is 0, so every edge is straight until the lens bends it. Raise it to around 30 and rows and columns wobble like woven cloth, while the center still bulges out of the grid.
FAQ
Why does a bulging checkerboard look three-dimensional?
The eye reads a regular grid as a flat surface, so any change in the size of the squares is taken as a change in distance. Large squares in the middle and thin ones at the rim read like the curve of a ball facing you, even though nothing is shaded.
How it works
Choose a starting point
Start from one of 16 looks such as Riley Current, Cobalt Tunnel or Moiré Twins, or pick one of 8 pattern geometries, from Halftone and Checkerboard to Moiré and Weave.
Bend the pattern
Pick a Mark shape and a Distortion field such as Lens, Pinch, Fold or Twist, set Pattern density, Mark weight, Spatial depth, Wave distortion and Color separation, then drag the artwork to position it.
Loop it and use it
Press Play to run a seamless Flow, Breathe or Counterflow loop, set the two inks, Light color and Backlight, then sign in with a free UX Pilot account to use it on the canvas or export it.