C0d1ng4fun - Perler Bead Patterns

Perler Bead Patterns

2024

software graphics

Circular pattern of the earth as seen from Apollo 17.

Montage of space shuttle patterns.

3D rendering of space shuttle.

Space shuttle build.

Perler bead patterns are built with limited resolution and palettes. This tool can represent such patterns in square, hexagonal and circle formations. Given a picture, a palette and a pattern, the pattern can be filled with beads to resemble the picture, using dithering if needed. Big square patterns can be split into panels and small patterns packed into shared panels.

Patterns can be illustrated as images to get a preview of the expected result. Build instructions can be generated to be printed in 1:1 scale to align beneath a transparent peg board.

Below is a summary of the subcommands available in the command line tool and some examples of patterns. Patterns and palettes are stored in a plain text format and can be edited in a plain text editor.

# perler help Subcommands: help | builtin | palette | picture | create | pack | show | instruction help Print this message. builtin List builtin resources. palette Generate palette from a picture. picture Generate pattern from a picture and palette. create Create empty pattern. pack Pack square patterns into pattern with layers of panels. show Produce an image of a pattern. instruction Generate a document with instructions for building a pattern. # perler create square 5 square ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... # perler create hex 5 hex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # perler create circle 5 circle . ...... ............ .................. ........................

The following commands were used to make the circular pattern of the earth based on this famous photograph of the earth as seen from Apollo 17.

perler picture The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg --pegboard circle 18 --hsv-weights 0.75 0.5 1 --transparent-position 0 0 --crop-transparent palettes/hama.txt earth.pat perler create circle 15 --reshape earth.pat -o earth15.pat perler show --background 0 0 0 palettes/hama.txt earth15.pat earth15.png

The plain text format can contain multiple layers representing a 3D volume when assembled. Build instructions for a model of the Space Shuttle as shown in the pictures is available below.

perler.exe (529.0 kB, Windows 32-bit x86)	-	The perler command line tool.
perler_space_shuttle.pdf (274.1 kB)	-	Space shuttle build instructions.