1_1: UNE FLEUR! MIAM MIAM. INSECT EYE IN SUBJECTIVE ......................... If you have ever wondered about how the world may look like from an insect point of view, here it is. This is a single shot of the insect view, the image produced by the thousand ommatidia as projected over the sensory cells. It has been taken through a mounted sirfid eye lens with a specially constructed fisheye, capturing the insect wide field of view from inside. How can this image inspire new technologies? The insect eye has been studied thoroughly, and the lenses hold no more secrets. More mysteries remain on the functioning of the sensory cells and the neural pathways to elaborate the multiple images; but that’s not the subject of this photo. The image may serve as an immediate visual guideline for programmers that need to integrate efficiently the image streams from different cameras; or as a suggestion on how an image from a single sensor, multiple lens image may be interpreted. Anyway, I had this idea and searched extensively but couldn’t find this image being taken before; so I had to make it. It has taken an extensive amount of time and resources, but at the end it worked, hope you all enjoy it. They are not all hexagons! I’ve seen at least one pentagon. ........... Subject: Eye lenses of a sirfid insect, likely Eristalis tenax, about 1x1mm. Flower likely Asteracea, yellow garden cultivar, about 70mm diameter. ....... Lens: Insect lenses: about 1000 pieces 0,07mm FL, f/2.8, on an approximately spherical surface 1,6mm radius. Maker: Eristalis tenax. Effective field of view used about 120 degrees. Projection to sensor: fisheye system of own construction; not disclosed. In case of interest I would disclose the methods used. ..................................................................... Theme 1: HEXAGONE +/- EPSILON. ............................ While humans like squares, in biology the most common geometry for tesselating surfaces is by hexagons; this likely originates spontaneously by the packing of spherical cells over a plane. And when the surface has a curvature, complete covering is achieved by adding or removing sides, leading to a few pentagons or heptagons. I’m not sure what inspirations natural tessellations can provide; after all, covering by squares is much more efficient from a design and manufacturing perspective. And if we really need to cover a sphere with hexagons and pentagons, well, football balls have been devised already, long time ago. Anyway! Hexagons minimize the contour, as probably do pentagons and heptagons when the surface is curved. Are truly optimal if we need to place objects somewhere, like windmills. We may use the number of pentagons and heptagons to measure the curvature of a surface; sounds cumbersome but may provide a breakthrough somewhere. Truth here is, biological tessellations simply make for beautiful patterns to photograph. . ............................................................................................................. AUTHOR PRESENTATION. ...................... My name is Giorgio Pattarini, am an applied physicist born in Italy and currently living in Norway. I am passionate about the mesoscopic world and its enormous variety of forms, being mineral, biological or artificial. Favourite themes are metallic coatings and rusting, mechanical design optimization, muds and soft matter, our meaning in the world, small critters and functional textures. I use photography as a tool to illustrate the enormously complex beauty of our world; a lot of work on the optics side, with the main focus on obtaining a clear illustration of the phenomenon of study. . ........................................................................................ PROJECT MOTIVATION. .................... I acquired in October 2020 two large lenses originally manufactured by SAGEM, now Safran. I looked on the net to find what was their application, but what I found instead was the Mimesis contest. I really liked the theme since in most of my work, I do mimesis all the time: to solve a new problem I typically look for (and find) existing solutions from different fields. I believe we still have a lot to learn from the vast mass of engineering produced by biological evolution. ................................... All photos have been shot by the author in Stavanger, Norway, between October 26 and November 4 2020, specifically for the Mimesis contest. I strived to seek innovative content and hope some images will provide inspiration for new technological implementations. I don’t have the patience or money to go hunting for the most bizarre insects in tropical forests (and anyway we are all quarantined), so most of the images are from common life forms and products that can be readily found in the house or in city parks. The amount of treasures hidden under our nose is amazing. ............................ The SAGEM lenses, mounted on a custom made bellows rail, have been used in four of the images; the rest are with commercial macro or wide camera lenses. One image (Fly eye in subjective) has been taken with another optical system built for the purpose. ............................................... Between the many ideas at the beginning, four themes have been developed: . .................... 1 - Exagon +/- epsilon - 6 images 2 - One specific animal - 4 images 3 - Autumn colors - 3 images 4- Toughness of composites - 5 images . ................................................................................. Wish to thank: Joanna Tatusko, the hands and eye model; as well as critical steering about lightning and shoots selection. Anke from Astrooptik DE, provided the initial motivation with the two Sagem lenses. Participants of the forum binomania.it for the insect eye shot inspiration. Svithun Husflidslaget Stavanger NO, preparation of the samples.