Pixelation software

[JenniferMurphy]

My question is not about photography. I hope that is OK.

I bought a box of PinBlock building blocks for the grandkids. (www.pinblock.com) They are a little like Legos, but much simpler. One of the things they are good at is building pixelated versions of images. Here's an example from their website:


The problem is that they do not provide any software for generating the templates or maps. So the kids are left to wing it freehand. That's OK, but tedious and error prone.

I found some pixelation software, but there is another problem. In order for a flat project to stay together, each row of blocks must overlap the previous one by half a block so that they lock together. Otherwise, it is just a bunch of independent vertical columns that are loose.

Here's an example of a Mickey image with "regular" pixelation:

And here it is with offset pixelation:

Can anyone recommend software that will pixelate an image at various resolutions and with the cells offset as in the second example above?

It would be great if the software would also convert each cell to a single homogeneous color that best represents the colors in that cell.

Thanks for any help.

 

[snowbear]

There used to be a few software packages used for planning cross-stitch projects that were free or relatively cheap. For simpler designs, try tracing paper and graph paper.

 

[gk fotografie]

My question is not about photography. I hope that is OK.
I bought a box of PinBlock building blocks for the grandkids. (www.pinblock.com) They are a little like Legos, but much simpler. One of the things they are good at is building pixelated versions of images. Here's an example from their website:
View attachment 187687
The problem is that they do not provide any software for generating the templates or maps. So the kids are left to wing it freehand. That's OK, but tedious and error prone.
I found some pixelation software, but there is another problem. In order for a flat project to stay together, each row of blocks must overlap the previous one by half a block so that they lock together. Otherwise, it is just a bunch of independent vertical columns that are loose.
Here's an example of a Mickey image with "regular" pixelation:
View attachment 187683
And here it is with offset pixelation:
View attachment 187685
Can anyone recommend software that will pixelate an image at various resolutions and with the cells offset as in the second example above?
It would be great if the software would also convert each cell to a single homogeneous color that best represents the colors in that cell.
Thanks for any help.

You can make a "bricks" pattern with free photo editing program PaintNet edition 4.2.10, you can determine the size yourself, choose PNG - Tiff - GIF to get a transparent brick pattern (use it to print as a transparant sheet) or add any image to this tiles pattern as a second layer. You can make the stone pattern as big or small as you want, just try and experiment, this editing program is really easy to use and very universal in terms of possibilities. Free download: https://www.getpaint.net/index.html
Enclosed two quick examples #1 pattern made and #2 random image added as 2nd layer.
Hopefully it will help you.

View attachment 187692

View attachment 187693

 

[JenniferMurphy]

You can make a "bricks" pattern with free photo editing program PaintNet edition 4.2.10, you can determine the size yourself, choose PNG - Tiff - GIF to get a transparent brick pattern (use it to print as a transparant sheet) or add any image to this tiles pattern as a second layer. You can make the stone pattern as big or small as you want, just try and experiment, this editing program is really easy to use and very universal in terms of possibilities. Free download: https://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Thanks for that pointer. I'll check it out.