That's more or less what I was trying to convey: for any size reduction, take the route that follows the path with the shortest Euclidian distance[1] (as oppose

That's more or less what I was trying to convey: for any size reduction, take the route that follows the path with the shortest Euclidian distance[1] (as opposed to Manhattan distance[1]) from the original resolution. If you do that, then the transitions should look quite smooth. You better memoize the intermediate results if you want decent performance though ;) So yes, I think your line of thought is on the right track! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_distance [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry