Did you know that any standard EV3 brick is capable of controlling the LEDS separately? And that the display is capable of displaying 4 shades of gray?
No, this extra functionality is not available via the standard programming environment that Lego provides. But if you use low level programming (I used EV3DEV in combination with C++), you have. See the example below.
You can read my article at our blog here: https://siouxnetontrack.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/lego-mindstorms-ev3-with-an-image-with-4-different-shades-of-gray/
Or have a look at the Youtube videos.
Enjoy.
Hans