Dither engine guide

Help

Short answers to what goes wrong most often.

The dots do not move

With a mouse or a pen, just move over the dots; no press is needed. With a finger, put it down on the frame and slide it; the dots are pushed only while it stays down.

A click or a tap sends a shockwave. If the push is faint, press Advanced under View and raise Push force or Push radius.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes, with every control. Phones and touch screens use a grid of at most 300 cells and draw at up to 1.5 times the screen's pixel density, so Scale past about 0.51 adds no more detail there.

Tap for a shockwave; keep a finger down and slide to push. A second finger sends its own shockwave but does not push.

It is slow

Every dot is moved and drawn each frame while anything moves. Lower Scale for fewer dots; the dot count and frames per second show under the image buttons. When every dot is home and the pointer is gone, drawing stops.

The picture is cut off, or tiny

The picture on the frame is the grid size times Dot size. Lower either one to fit it; raise Dot size to fill the frame. Resizing the window redraws the dots in the middle of the frame.

My big picture looks the same as a small one

Every picture is shrunk to the dot grid before it is dithered, so a big picture only helps up to the grid's size. Raise Scale for more detail.

The picture did not load

The page says That image could not be loaded when the browser cannot open the file. Save it as a PNG or JPEG and try again.

What happens to the see-through parts of my picture?

They count as background and stay empty, with Invert on or off. Half see-through edges fade towards the background.

My SVG does not match the screen

The SVG keeps every dot at its resting place, so dots you are pushing are back home in it. See Keep your work. Save a PNG for exactly what you see.

Copy did nothing

Some browsers do not let a page put a picture on the clipboard; the page then says Copy failed. Use Save PNG instead.

Is my picture uploaded?

No. The picture is read and dithered on your device and never leaves it.

Why is a picture from another tool here?

Pictures you add are kept on this device for every lab tool that takes one, so you need not add them again. Press × on a tile to forget that picture; the sample comes back.

Are there keyboard shortcuts?

The tool has none of its own. Anywhere in the lab, Ctrl K, or Cmd K on a Mac, opens the list of all tools.

Why does the video stop by itself?

Record video keeps exactly one sweep, Seconds a cycle long, so the clip loops when it plays. It is an MP4 in H.264, the kind phones, Photos and Instagram play.