The picture at the top on the right is an etching by Escher. Lipson and Shiu computed what the distortion was on the image, then undistorted the image to create a "clean" picture of a village. They then built the village in Lego, photographed it, and applied the computed distortion to that photograph to create the image at the top left.

The pictures throughout the rest of the post document what they did, and what the model looked like from other angles. You may think it's implausible, but I can assure you that it's all true, and that's why it's impressive.

As to the use of "rendering" I'm assuming you mean this:

> I wondered for some time whether it would be possible to produce a plausible rendering of any of his pictures in LEGO bricks.

Basically that's just asking if they can produce a duplicate of the Escher image by photographing a Lego model and applying a distortion.

Which they did.

Thanks. But why is there no un-distorted photo of the lego set from the right perspective? That would be the most interesting thing IMO

He built a Lego model that from the right position, and with a fisheye/warp effect, would create a picture that looks like the famous painting.

Because of the “right position” any picture from any other angle shows all the cheating.

I'm right there with you. Thought that the lego build would replicate the warp effect without need for photographic trickery. Was disappointed.

I think it's a bit underwhelming, yes