Many images in the movie are based on complex mathematical calculations about space gathered by scientists.
VOA: special.2010.09.29
When physicists started getting mathematical properties to space and time, they overstepped the bounds of legitimate science, and that is when things got crazy.
You can readily see how it would lead him to arrive at the mathematical rules (each spot a different color, a uniform size equal to the space between each spot, etc.), and how the formula enabled him to hire other people to paint them for him.
Chimera architecture removes those boundaries by providing the power to conduct nearly 100 billion mathematical operations per second to perform image processing, using computational techniques used in X-ray CT scanners, deep space telescopes and spy satellites.