iOrnament


iOrnament – draw creative geometry art
  • create symmetric patterns and mandalas
  • artistically expressive pens
  • direct support for Apple Pencil
  • high resolution export
  • access to all crystallographic groups
  • spherical and hyperbolic symmetries
  • learn about underlying mathematics
Get iOrnament on the Apple App Store.
iOrnament in action

...where science and art meet...
The planar crystallographic groups (also called wallpaper groups) are a fascinating topic on the borderline of science and art. Each infinite regular Ornament that has specific symmetry properties defined by its mirror axes, rotation centers and glide reflections belongs to one of the wallpaper groups. Amazingly, there are only 17 different possibilities in which these elementary symmetries can be combined to form a planar Ornament. iOrnament is an app that lets you create creative and artistic ornaments and that also provides backgrounds that explain what is actually going on.


 
...unleash creativity...
First of all iOrnament is a drawing app! You draw simple strokes with your finger or the Apple Pencil - iOrnament repeats them automatically according to the rules of a selected symmetry group. By just drawing a few strokes fascinating patterns emerge. People of almost all ages starting from 3 year old kids up to scientifically or artistically interested grownups can spend hours in the creative process of creating ornaments, tilings or infinite knots. iOrnament lets you creativity flow, unexpected twists appear while you are drawing follow them to see where they lead. iOrnament is at the same time relaxing, meditative, scientific, artistic, structured, hypnotic, fun and educational.
Can't believe it: try it out!



Scientific backgrounds:
Behind the structure of ornaments there is a vast amount of theory that gives answers to questions like "How does one symmetry imply another one?", "Which planar symmetries can be used to create ornaments?", "Why are there exactly 17 principal classes of ornaments?". Questions like this are treated in an interactive pop-up book that comes with iOrnament. Each topic comes with an interactive explanation that allows to perform your own experiments in order to get intuition and a deeper understanding.



iOrnament in action:
Want to get an impression? See iOrnament in action in the video on the right.

There are also other videos available:
A longer demo video
A video on user creations
A video about iOrnament 1.0
A talk on mathematical background



Gallery:
An interactive gallery on this site gives an impression of the diversity of different patterns that can be created with iOrnament. Flourish designs, highly geometric tilings, intricate weavings or infinite knots are equally accessible. Drawing an interesting ornament is a Zen like process. Often while you draw an ornament interesting structures emerge that can be used to create designs you never dreamed of.