"Knot Heel" was made using the results of our research in computer graphics and computer vision. Beginning with a real image, visual analysis lets us automatically decompose the original texture into a straight grain pattern, a knot, and the deformation of the grain induced by the knot. Once the pattern is divided into its natural parts, it becomes easy to re-arrange it in a variety of fanciful and interesting ways-moving or removing the knot, adding additional ones, and so forth. The resulting objects, although synthetic, appear natural because they were constructed according to the rules we extracted from the original real object.

"Knot Reel" is composed of digitally synthesized images, with the exception of brief live video sequences at the beginning and end. The visual pattern analysis, modeling, and rendering were performed using inhouse software written in Zetalisp, running on a Symbolics 3670 computer. Video was generated using the Symbolics machine's internal frame buffer, and single-frame recorded in BetaCam on a Sony BVW-40 VCR, using a Lyon Lamb VAS IV animation controller.

Technical Description ’’Knot Reel’’ is a plays on words: ‘’Knots’’ (branch) and ‘’not real’’