pixels2pgf
-----------------------------

pixels2pgf is a very simple tool which reads a single image file
and outputs PGF/Tikz commands which resemble the picture pixel-by-pixel,
using rectangles.

The output is very simple right now. By default, every pixel is
represented by a single 1x1 rectangle. You are likely to notice tiny
white borders between pixels, and you may either like it or not.

If you want pixels to occupy that space as well, you can replace `\fill`
instructions with `\filldraw` but that has its visual drawbacks too.
Antialiasing seems to be the problem here.

You can also use `--horiz` or `--vert` to represent adjoining pixels by
wide horizontal or vertical rectangles. The former one resembles
interlacing a little.

If you use both, both horizontal and vertical rectangles will be created
for _all_ pixels. That means, the same pixels will be represented twice.
That's usually not what you want to achieve.

Creating two-dimensional rectangles from adjoining pixels hasn't been
implemented yet. Feel free to send me a patch.


Use example
-----------------------------

An example use case for pixels2pgf is embedding QRCode in Beamer
presentation. First, you create QRCode image file using some tool:

	qrencode -s 1 -m 0 -o test.png test

We use `-s 1` here to output 1 dot-per-pixel image. pixels2pgf usually
outputs one rectangle for every black pixel on the image, so keeping
the number of pixels small is usually a good idea.

You should also try to use lossless image formats. Using JPEG is likely
to blur the image, and make pixels2pgf likely to read it badly.

Afterwards, you can use pixels2pgf to convert the image into PGF/Tikz
commands:

	pixels2pgf test.png > test.pgf

The resulting file you can embed into any PGF/Tikz drawing using
`\input`. For example:

	\tikz[x=1mm,y=1mm]{\input{test.pgf}}

Make sure you set the right scale. You can also experiment with
`--horiz` and `--vert` options, and choose the look you like best.

-------------------------------
(c) 2012 Michał Górny
2-clause BSD-licensed