What is a planic?

I read Heir to the Empire, but I got confused with the "planics" in Thrawn's command room.
"He stopped short, just inside the room, and looked around in astonishment. The walls and domed ceiling were covered with flat paintings and planics, a few of them vaguely human-looking but most of distinctly alien origin."

I've searched on the internet and still can't figure out what in the empire is a planic? I understand it's some kind of two-dimensional art form, but what exactly is it?
Need help...

 

I think you're right, but it's nowhere on the wook and it's definitely not a misprint.

 

My guess is it's just a fancy term that Zahn came up with to describe some sort of imbedded computerized artwork in a two-dimensional medium. But that really is just a guess.

 

Most likely it's just a Star Wars-ization of "painting."

 

...but the quote also has the word "painting" in it... Darn it, I wish I had my copy of that book with me!

 

Perhaps it's intended to be some sort of panel painting? Word seems close enough...

 

Missed that.

Maybe they're like bas-reliefs?

-RJW, Lord of the Dance

 

Bas-reliefs are more likely flatsculps.

Planic sounds perhaps like a space mosaic, or a 2D holographic artwork. I'm going to go with 2D holo art.

 

That probably works best. And it explains why I can't find the definition online!

 

It seems Timothy Zahn has created more fictional words than I realized

Since Thrawn mentioned that the sculptures and flats are both holographic later on, I tends to take "planics" for some form of actual art work. But that won't be an absolute, of course.

 

From the word plane. Planes and angles.

 

Planic is a real world last name, according to google.

Maybe "planics" is a slang word for artworks made by a guy called Planic, like how artworks by Bruegel are sometimes called "Bruegels" (as an example).

 

As Excellence said, "planic" is an adjective, meaning "in the form of a plane".

Thus, it's flat artworks that aren't paintings. Sculptures, photographs, video, computer-created imagery, or perhaps simply screen-like holographic reproductions rather than real, original paintings.

- The Imperial Ewok