Slow, low-res images with Etch-A-Snap concept

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NEWS – Ever wanted to take a detailed, beautiful photograph and scale it down to a 1-bit black and white 244 x 144 pixel low-resolution image?  Me neither. But someone did and created Etch-A-Snap.

Etch-A-Snap is controlled by a Raspberry Pi processor.  It takes a regular image and then downscales it to one-bit black and white.  The processor then converts the image into plotter control commands that are fed to gears used to drive the knobs on a small Etch-A-Sketch.  Images are definitely low-resolution, but the tech behind it all is pretty cool. All this takes time – 15 minutes up to an hour – to get results.  Still, as the inventor says, it’s faster than film!

Here is a video showing how it works.

It isn’t for sale and is just a concept project for the moment. For more information and additional sample image videos, visit the Etch-A-Snap project page here.

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