pixelcraft - a free web application for sprite crafts

[ScienceDad]

Hi folks,

I haven't posted in a long time! A while back I wrote a little Python script called "Spriter" that some of you might have used. I just wanted to announce that I've just released an alpha (not feature complete) version of a free open-source JavaScript/HTML5 application called pixelcraft, which is hosted at my new (and otherwise embarrassingly empty) website: http://www.theoryandwings.com/software/pixelcraft

pixelcraft is designed to take image files and convert them into patterns. There are two major functions: (1) it will reduce the number of colours down to any level using a simple slider control; and (2) it will map the reduced colours to many different craft palettes, including DMC, Anchor, Perler (currently supported), Lego, Crayola and more (planned).

I guess another nice thing about this is that you don't have to download or install anything - you just need a modern web browser (oh, but Firefox won't work well because it doesn't support range inputs, i.e. "sliders" - sorry).

I've got a lot more planned but I wanted to seed this alpha to the forum to get some feedback and to see what breaks (I'm lookin' at you, LL!) :-)

Best,
- SD (AP irl if you bother to read the fine print )

[Eliste]

(oh, but Firefox won't work well because it doesn't support range inputs, i.e. "sliders" - sorry).

Damn.

[ScienceDad]

(oh, but Firefox won't work well because it doesn't support range inputs, i.e. "sliders" - sorry).

Damn.

Okay, okay! :-)
I've found and plugged in a JavaScript module (html5slider) that enables the slider for Firefox users.
Still the functionality is not equivalent - there is no live update as you slide, which is the fun part!
Will look to see if I can set up a trigger.

Cheers,
- sd

[ScienceDad]

and I just discovered that Safari doesn't support the FileReader API - did I mention that I did all my development on Chrome? *sigh*

looking for a fix..
- sd

[kuja.girl]

looks awesome, once I have the time I'll play with it.
And I understand the "I developed in Chrome" syndrome, had a webpage look beautiful on Chrome and FF and like crap on IE :(

[blackberrybear]

Is there a size limit and is there a way to save the pattern for later?

[ScienceDad]

looks awesome, once I have the time I'll play with it.
And I understand the "I developed in Chrome" syndrome, had a webpage look beautiful on Chrome and FF and like crap on IE

Thanks and yeah I haven't built up the courage to view the webpage on IE yet..

[ScienceDad]

Is there a size limit and is there a way to save the pattern for later?

Currently the size limit is determined by the HTML5 canvas object, which is currently set to 1000 by 1000 pixels (totally arbitrary). Of course that does not correspond to the dimensions of the original image because I'm blowing up each pixel into an 8x8 pixel square. So the display limit is roughly 120 by 120 right now. I can (and will) scale this up but the trade-off is that redrawing large images creates a significant lag. I was going to look into image caching for HTML5 animations as a way around this.

Re: saving patterns for later, since pixelcraft operates entirely on client side (on your own computer!) I would need to come up with a way to generate and export some kind of custom file format. I was going to work in layout for printing patterns and colour keys first.

Cheers,
- sd

[funkymonkey]

as a temporary solution, you could always take a screen shot.

[ScienceDad]

as a temporary solution, you could always take a screen shot.

Actually, one of my general objectives when writing pixelcraft was to minimize the need to print stuff out. I've burned through a lot of color ink cartridges on pattern sheets. I have no idea how realistic an objective this is :-)
Just discovered local storage in HTML5 so saving work should be relatively straight-forward to implement - hooray!
- sd