Mirror or kaleidoscope? They are not the same cost

mirror_* and kaleido_* both give you N-fold symmetry, and on a line scene they can look nearly alike — but they work at opposite ends of the pipeline:

	mirror_order / mirror_reflect	the kaleido_* family
what it folds	the geometry, before rasterization	the finished pixels
when	while the scene builds its segments	a post stage, after the scene has drawn
resolution cost	none — every replicated segment is drawn at full target resolution	resamples through the stage’s internal grid
works on	line systems only (parametric_curve, lsystem, star_pattern)	any scene

On a line scene, prefer the mirror whenever either would do. Replicated geometry is rasterized at the target’s own resolution, so a 24-fold mirror is exactly as crisp as no mirror at all; the screen-space fold has to resample.

The post stages follow the render target rather than sitting at a fixed grid (see below), which keeps the fold’s cost down — but it is still a resample, and the mirror is still free.