9 different patterns formed on a grid of Truchet tiles

A few patterns with Truchet tiles

Carlos Neves

I came accross the wikipedia article on Truchet tiles by chance, and thought it might be nice to try and reproduce a few patterns. On my own, I was mostly able to reproduce some of the simpler ones. Though after finding this research paper on Truchet’s tiling patterns, it showed me that some much more elaborate patterns can be put together through these tiles. Below is a small tool to switch between the handful of patterns I was able to reproduce (there are more in the paper).

From the Wikipedia article:

In information visualization and graphic design, Truchet tiles are square tiles decorated with patterns that are not rotationally symmetric. When placed in a square tiling of the plane, they can form varied patterns, and the orientation of each tile can be used to visualize information associated with the tile's position within the tiling.