Simple vs Complex Mosaics
In the Lego Mosaics sections of this site we refer to ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ mosaics – these are our definitions and may be called differently elsewhere. Here’s a quick explanation of what we mean by this:
Simple Mosaics
The majority of Lego mosaics that you see featured on the web are built from 1×1 plates. That’s one Lego plate for each pixel of the source image.
So if the image is 48 by 48 pixels then the number of Lego plates required to create the mosaic will be 48 x 48 = 2304 plates.
Complex Mosaics
In many cases there will be areas of an image which are the same colour so with a simple mosaic you will have number of 1×1 plates of the same colour next to each other. A complex mosaic replaces those areas with the largest plate size it that will fit the area.
A picture speaks a thousand words so:
Simple Mosaic |
Complex Mosaic |
Depending on the colours of the source image a complex mosaic can usually be built with significantly less parts than a simple mosaic – saving time and cost.