The IP address used for your Internet connection is part of a subnet that has been blocked from access to PubMed Central. Addresses across the entire subnet were used to download content in bulk, in violation of the terms of the PMC Copyright Notice. Use of PMC is free, but must comply with the terms of the Copyright Notice on the PMC site. For additional information, or to request that your IP address be unblocked, For requests to be unblocked, you must include all of the information in the box above in your message.How to make a LEGO mosaicLEGO mosaics can be realized in various ways. You can start with processing a color image, scale it down in size and reduce the number of colors to match the ones available in the LEGO palette. The simplest way to build a LEGO mosaic is to attach many colored 1×1 tiles or 1×2 LEGO plates on a large LEGO baseplate, getting a square pixel aspect ratio. An alternative is to use plates with studs up, getting a different pixel aspect ratio, because LEGO plates are shorter than wider.
A double LEGO mosaicThere is a way to make a LEGO mosaic that shows two pictures in one: it’s called a lenticular mosaic, and involves using LEGO 1×1 slope bricks instead of plates or tiles. The design process is slightly more complex, because you have to start with two images, split them in columns (or rows) and then assemble each row interleaving one image with the other. See the video to understand better how this process works. The result is a picture that is confusing, if seen from front, but that shows the two original images when seen from sideways.Here’s a selection of LEGO baseplates that you can use to make your own mosaics!008 If you think your selfies are not getting enough social traction online, why don't you spice them up a little bit? There's a new website called Brick-A-Pic that can help you with that. Conceived as part of a larger project, the website allows you to recreate your photos and even own designs with Lego bricks. As soon as you choose a photo you want to turn into a colourful Lego mosaic, the site's powerful algorithms will take care of the rest.
Then, it will divide the picture into several parts and allow you to pick the one you think looks the best. For a small amount of money, the company behind Brick-A-Pic will build the photograph using actual Lego bricks. At the moment the website only runs small errands like avatars and selfies, but as the time goes by, it should start accepting commissions for larger pieces of Lego-style art. If you'd like to support Brick-A-Pic in struggling with initial challenges (and buying thousands of Lego bricks they need to create pictures), head over to the company's Kickstarter page and back up this fun, yet very ambitious project. The official LEGO iPhone app isn't exactly what you would expect from a company known for allowing our imaginations run wild, but it is quite entertaining in a simple way, and it's available for free. So really, how can you go wrong? LEGO Photo allows you to turn any photo from your camera roll, or one that you have just taken, into a beautiful brick mosaic.
When you first launch the app you will notice a simple and clean interface that allows you to take a new picture or just grab one from your camera roll. The app will then turn your photo into a colorful brick mosaic with a single tap of the screen. If aren't fond of the current color scheme, just tap the screen again and a wave of new bricks will replace the old ones in real-time. Once you are satisfied with your image, just tap the info button in the upper right-hand corner to save your image. LEGO Photo is now available in the App Store for free. It is supports both the iPhone and iPod touch, but if you are using an iPod touch you will only be able to import images currently saved on your device.This small program converts a given PNG image file into a Lego Mosaic: it takes the source image, converts each non-alpha pixel to a close-matching brick color, then attempts to draw the image using only Lego bricks. The approach is to use A* filling, where the algorithm
attempts to place all next valid bricks, but only places the most optimal one at the currentThis continues until all pixels are covered. The image can be any PNG file, though the pixels must have full alpha (e.g. fully visible without any transparency) to be matched with a Lego piece. Any alpha'ed-out pixels are simplyBricks and brick-colors are defined in a text file that is passed to this application. The final output is a series of images showing the progress of how the Png image was filled, as well as a list of bricks to buy on the Lego "Pick a Brick" store. The code runs quickly (benefit of A* vs. exhaustive search) and uses little run-time memory. It converted a video game logo that had a resolution of 400 × 173 pixels in 120 seconds using ~10 MB. The result was a list of 5,170 Lego pieces (covering 21,061 pixels), costing $965.80 in parts (bulk discount not applied). In comparison, the "LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon" has 5,922 Lego pieces costing ~$500 USD.
The following images represent given input, Mosaic conversion, and the result of the A* Lego fill algorithm (other examples at bottom): Video link of converting a Mario / Bowser image: YouTube Link. Video for Samus: YouTube Link. Here's a great example of sample output; this comes from converting the SNES front-facing Samus sprint from Super Metroid: The program is executed with the following command-line arguments: For example, you can test the application by running through a very simple image, like the cursive "Hello" png file with the default brick definitions file: The default "BrickDefinitions.txt" file defines 12 colors, picked from the "Pick-a-Brick" Lego store online here. It also defines 18 bricks, ranging from single 1x1 pegs to the 8x1 tall / wide brick, and the classic 2x4 brick. To define your own BrickDefinitions.txt file, follow this format: a file must start with a positive integer representing the number of colors, C.
On following C-number of lines, the color needs an ASCII non-spaced name, followed by the RGB values in normalized byte value (e.g. 0 - 255, inclusive). This list is then followed by the number of bricks you want to define, B. On the following B-number of lines, a brick is defined as three space-delimited positive integers: width, height, and cost (in pennies). This software has a very simple high-level architecture since it's a straight-forward toy project. There are three main classes, with two supporting files: The supporting code includes a "Vec2.h" class, which is a simple integer tuple (useful for position and size data), and a "main.cpp" source file, where the application parses input and instantiates the The A* search implementation is as follows: given a brick-colored image, find pixels that have yet to be covered by a brick, and are directly adjacent to other pixels that have been covered by bricks or are invalid pixels (alpha'ed out).
Iterate over this list, placing all possible combinations of Lego bricks with the appropriate color. Compute the rank, which is Cost (in pennies) divided by coverage count (number of pegs). Sort these solutions based on rank, saving the best value. saving these optimal breadth-search'ed bricks. The flaw with A* is that it picks locally optimal results, not globally optimal results. This is acceptable, since locally optimal still produces good coverage (e.g. it places the best brick for most of the time). LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site. Copyright (c) 2014 CoreS2 - Core Software Solutions. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to