OK. Thanks. That's a nice little list to investigate. I can only recognize two of those off hand.

Hi everyone,

I realize this thread isn't very active, but this is my first post in the forums, so please bear with me :)

I happen to be making a LEGO mosaic app (called Photobricks) that surprisingly shares many similarities with yours, so your program really caught my attention Lasse D!

My goal wasn't to make something like pictobrick, which is extremely flexible but can be a pain to use for those of us (including myself, at least before I did research) who are not familiar with the technicalities (algorithms, styles, etc...) involved in the mosaic creation software. I wanted to make something that the average Joe (or a child in elementary school) could easily pick up and enjoy. I realize this won't be taken very nicely by serious LEGO mosaic artists who pride themselves in beating any computer algorithm, but my sincere guess is that most kids and adults will enjoy the app.

If you have any questions about Photobricks or if you would like to simply discuss about LEGO mosaics, I would be more than happy to talk to you here in the forums or in private if you PM me!

Oh, I almost forgot, the website! You can find more info about Photobricks by going to www.photobricksapp.com (sorry I can't post links yet!)

Happy holidays!

@ Photobricks: Welcome to Eurobricks! I see on your Photobricks website homepage that "Photobricks is a completely free, ridiculously easy-to-use mosaic creation software specialized to work with LEGO® bricks. With Photobricks, you can make beautiful mosaics from your favorite images with the push of a button. For those of us who like to have more control, you can further customize the mosaic by cropping and changing the colors of individual bricks. You can then view what types of bricks you’ll need to build your mosaic and, when you’re finished with your masterpiece, you can share it in a variety of ways with others thanks to the built-in publishing options. Excited? You can start using Photobricks right now by visiting the Download page. Not convinced yet? You can check out Photobricks for Mac or Photobricks for iPhone, iPod touch [Available this Friday, December 16 world-wide] to learn more about Photobricks."

"Photobricks is currently being reviewed by Apple and will shortly be available on the Mac App Store. You can bookmark this page–we will update it as soon as we get the green light from Apple. You can also follows us on Twitter and on Facebook, where we'll keep you updated with information about Photobricks for Mac."

DLuders, great that you helped out to post the link to the site. But in all honesty I'm not sure why you copied and pasted the content also? Or did I miss something?

Anyway, I say welcome to Photobricks too.

Thank you DLuders and Superkalle for your warm welcome! And thank you for posting the link to the website

Lasse D, have you made any progress on your program? It seems more thorough than mine's

Eurobricks seems like a great place to be on the web!

Thank you DLuders and Superkalle for your warm welcome! And thank you for posting the link to the website

Lasse D, have you made any progress on your program? It seems more thorough than mine's

Eurobricks seems like a great place to be on the web!

I just downloaded Photobricks on my Iphone-- I love it!

I am looking at doing a mosaic for my son. How do you put together the baseplates (4) to make 96x96?

Also, I noticed, on the required plates-- you have plates-- can bricks be used?

Do you recommending glueing or the plates will stick better than the bricks? I do plan on framing it afterwards.

Thanks

@ dshreyas: If you are going to frame your 96x96 mosaic anyway, recommend gluing the Lego 628 X-Large Gray Baseplates onto a thin plywood backing (to prevent flexing). Many Lego mosaic MOCs use 1x1 Plates instead of 1x1 Tiles (to keep the cost down). The 1x1s have good "clutching" power onto the baseplate -- you don't need glue (which would probably ooze out behind the 1x1s and create a mess).

Is there digital mosaic software that can model 1x1 round plates centered on 2x2 round plates? Behold this BIG Lego mosaic of actress Halle Barry (photographed at the TwinLUG table at SpringCon 2011, and posted on Garth Danielson's Flickr photostream):

That mosaic is actually by Roy Cook, Garth doesn't build mosaic and wouldn't really be able to talk much about it problably.

Lasse D, you software looks really neat.

Photobricks, I will be checking yours out on my iphone today! I had started developing something for this for my iPhone but my husband told me nobody would want it

Do you know any way to print the mosaic so while I am putting it together-- I can easily see whats going where -- instead of the iPhone screen?

This is awesome. Any updates on the software?

(And with much delay)

I have now taken all the feedback from this thread and updated the software so that it is now ready for everyone to try out.

The name is now LD Digital Mosaic Creator and it can be downloaded here that is, the same place as always.

The user interface has received an overhaul and it is my intention to make it as easy and intuitive to use as possible, while still having a lot of functionality.

You can read about it, download and see how to run it on Windows/MAC/Linux from the link provided. I have written some of the things where I have tried to make it excel, but if we take the suggestions from this thread, then I have made the following:

Colors

The program now uses fancy pansy color correction like the best mosaic programs, but I have made some improvements to the speed of how these colors are computed. This makes the program very responsive as long as you don't create some insanely huge mosaic.

I have followed Aanchir's advice and made the colors completely customizable. You can choose exactly how you want to display colors. This can be with numbers, RGB values, official LEGO named, Peeron, language specific, you name it. Colors can be updated automatically from the list at Rebrickable, and you can even add your own names!

Thanks Aanchir.

Algorithms

legolijntje has been talking about algorithms. I have implemented some different dithering algorithms, but found that nothing can really touch Floyd-Steinberg when it comes to quality. Floyd-Steinberg is sometimes over-correcting for colors, so I have added a "Floyd-Steinberg percentage gauge" where 0% means solid regions without dithering at all, and 100% means full steam on Floyd-Steinberg. The program has this setting at 50% out of the box, but setting it to different values has turned to be a good way to set the "level of dithering" exactly to your liking.

Thanks to all who have pointed out other mosaic software which I have used for testing (and blatantly tried to beat).

Printing

Printing is now finally working! Now there are at least 3 ways to build a mosaic. You can use the magnifier, export to LDR and print the instructions.

SNOT

There have been some bugs in my program where the quality when using SNOT has not been as good as I liked it. This has now been fixed, and I have tested it using pictures such as dart board, various ovals, etc.

Thanks to mahjqa for pointing out the importance of SNOT, and for giving me some samples to compare with.

If you press the "SNOT button" on the mosaic above, then it looks like this:

I hope a lot of people will try it out and give me feedback on anything you find. Bugs, errors, ideas for improvements, etc. All contributers will be credited in the About dialog.

Edited January 4, 201510 yr by Lasse D

I was really looking forward to trying this, but the requirement of Java is a bit of a hang-up for me. :(

It seems a very good mosaic software.

Did you think about exporting the mosaic in lxf? It would be very useful for LDD users that want to have a digital version of the mosaic.

I was really looking forward to trying this, but the requirement of Java is a bit of a hang-up for me. :(

I'm sorry to hear that. This project was started before I learned C++ and other languages. Are you avoiding Java for security/religious reasons or on a device where there's simply no chance for Java to run (iOS, etc.)? If it is the former, then it might be possible for me to bundle the relevant parts of the JRE and make it standalone executable.

The Windows version currently also requires Java, but I found a way to make it help with the installation so you only have to run the .exe.

It seems a very good mosaic software.

Did you think about exporting the mosaic in lxf? It would be very useful for LDD users that want to have a digital version of the mosaic.

Thanks. I skipped the format thinking it was proprietary and too closed, but I have read up on it and it seems possible to export to this format without too much trouble. I'm looking into it.

Doesn't seem to work on OSX Yosemite, with newest version of java installed. It starts and crashes immediately.

Oh dear. Unfortunately I don't have access to a Mac. I make the jar file and cross my fingers after testing that it works on other platforms.

Could you perhaps start it from a console and show me the error mesage from there? That would help me a lot.

That is. Start a console. Navigate to the folder with the jar file and run "java -jar lddmc.jar".

Thanks. I skipped the format thinking it was proprietary and too closed, but I have read up on it and it seems possible to export to this format without too much trouble. I'm looking into it.

Yes, lxf format is open, here are the specifications!

Hope this helps.

Edited January 5, 201510 yr by Calabar

Yes, lxf format is open, here are the specifications!

Hope this helps.

Thanks a lot. I am working on it now (just came home from work)

If we are lucky I can soon add LDD export functionality. It would be great if I could figure out the issues Classicsmiley and lego2lego have as well.

Doesn't seem to work on OSX Yosemite, with newest version of java installed. It starts and crashes immediately.

Fixed. Thanks for reporting the problem.

TODO for version 0.9.4:

- Implement ColorBlock to be used in pipeline

- Add PipeLine as a controller for picture transformations.

- Make statusbar show progress for loading, saving, exporting, printing and updating mosaic.

DONE for version 0.9.3:

- Make better error messages when files can't be read and written.

- Update installation guide for OSX.

- Shorten printed text messages that go out of bounds

- Export to LDD

- Use better pictures for export to LDraw and LDD

- Make save dialogs make the user confirm overwritten files

- Make left picture float like the right one

- Make "show totals" an option

- Include new colors when they are added during runtime.

- Add toolbar buttons to pack/resize the dialog

- Add chart showing color distribution

- Add toolbar button to hide chart

- Make PrintDialog more pretty (titles and group radio buttons)

- Add page flip to print Preview (next/previous page, +show number of pages)

- Re-implement logging.

- Serializable model using KVFile.

- Make model more strict: Report warning when not loading all, error when not saving all.

- Separate MainWindow from main program.

- Add image as normal part of KVFile (Base64 encode)

- Change save-functionality: Display save dialog when appropriate.

- Shadow on printed position box.

- Use JWrapper

Edited February 2, 201510 yr by Lasse D

I'm sorry to hear that. This project was started before I learned C++ and other languages. Are you avoiding Java for security/religious reasons or on a device where there's simply no chance for Java to run (iOS, etc.)? If it is the former, then it might be possible for me to bundle the relevant parts of the JRE and make it standalone executable.

The Windows version currently also requires Java, but I found a way to make it help with the installation so you only have to run the .exe.

Thanks. I skipped the format thinking it was proprietary and too closed, but I have read up on it and it seems possible to export to this format without too much trouble. I'm looking into it.

I choose to not install Java as a security precaution. If there's a way to use the relevant parts in a stand-alone exe without having to do a full-blown install, I'd be very interested. (For reference, I'm running Windows 8.1 pro.)

I choose to not install Java as a security precaution. If there's a way to use the relevant parts in a stand-alone exe without having to do a full-blown install, I'd be very interested. (For reference, I'm running Windows 8.1 pro.)

I understand you perfectly. While Java was awesome back around 2002, greed and competition seems to have cast a shadow over the language. I am working on using JWrapper for deployment which will fix all Java installation issues for all platforms (or so I hope).

I'm currently using launch4j. THis allows the installation to be very small, but only really helps Windows users, and then not those who are vary of Java/Oracle.

Wow this looks really cool will give it a try for sure , thank you for all your hard work !!!!

Currently my bug TODO list is: [...]

Don't forget the lxf export function!

Thanks. I was just about to forget :P

It has turned out to be quite the challenge to make JWrapper work with LDDMC so that there will be an installer without Java. The problems are currently centered around certificate issues. It is not easy to obtain a developer certificate for free!

Meanwhile, I have begun implementing an export-to-LDD function which saves an lxf file:

Great!

It was a feature I was waiting from long time!