Circular Pixels to defeat the Square Pixels

[Grundy]

If somehow pixelated screens would be replaced by 3D holographics in a space and images would be made out of some kind of laser vector.  we'd get to play with lightcubes ( a format we'd make up ourselves. just for fun) and  pixelart would morph into unlimited lego.

And if that did'nt work for us there'd always be ministeck
I think it's the limitations rather than the possibilities that make the medium interesting. We'll always find some shackling rules for ourselves to play within. Trying to improve on the rules (circular vs rectangular) is not the point.

[r1k]

what about triangle pixels?  Essentially each pixel is cut into 2 right triangles, allowing for perfectly smooth 45 degree angles.  Okay, now it would probably be too impractical to pixel images that way, but it got me thinking how other angles would end up looking, and I tried drawing some up and figuring out how AA would work just for fun.  Heres what I came up with

Id be interested if anyone could come up with better AA solutions.

[rikfuzz]

That's pretty interesting.  But if you slice a pixel diagonally, bottom pixels will look blue and top pixels will look red unless you have a solution for the placement of the RGB subpixels:

http://www.dansdata.com/images/sm152b/pointerdetail.jpg

I reckon except for very low resolutions (large pixels) you won't see any difference at all, but there'll be still considerable added complexity.

CRT monitors did (often?) use triangular configurations of round sub pixels, but at that density it's essentially one image, rather than the illustrated jigsaw-puzzle type deal.  

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/CRT_screen._closeup.jpg

Also totally skipped my mind, but how can you flip that image with your proposed pixel configuration?  Total mess!   

[r1k]

oh darn youre right flipping it becomes a total mess, back to the drawing board I guess.
how about cutting it into 4 regular triangles... Ill have to try it out.
ya it wouldnt really matter except at low resolutions, but its kind of fun to just see how it would look in my opinion.

edit: okay so 4 regular triangels should essential give the same results, but be a bigger hassle to work with, but should be flippable (I think..)

[Grimsane]

even at 1x such configurations will have little discernible difference between it and pixels



2x size pixels and a screen pattern (could be any of the shapes you describe) it's fruitless, interesting for a restriction for your art but nothing more, I'm sure alot of the "scientists" and technicians that have been making and developing displays for decades came to a similar conclusion, it's not efficient or economical because it would likely just be harder to manufacture with little to no discernible difference between it and the current methods,

besides you miss the point to some degree, pixel's are the digital picture element used to display visual data, monitors don't have "pixels" they are dot matrices and essentially each element is basically circular in nature anyway, and with cathode ray methods they were circular rays of light clustered closely together anyway as far as I recall.

and in all likely hood anything more complex than a 4 sided pixels are going to have more overhead than is worthwhile, and as you are doing it now you are relying on square pixels to form your proposed patterns which is a bizarre paradox within itself

[surt]

When I first heard the term "Retina Display" I imagined it would be a display mimicking the distribution of retinal cells with pixels positioned in a blue noise distribution and brightness weighted by the area of the voronoi cell.
Sadly I was wrong.
Addressing would have been a pain in the arse.

[r1k]

it's fruitless, interesting for a restriction for your art but nothing more

dont get me wrong, I agree completely, just having a bit of fun.  If youve ever seen my pixeljoint account youd see I like doing alot of images with wierd restrictions.

[Danik]

There's this art tool coming which uses hexagons, "hexels":
http://www.hexels.com/
http://tedmartens.wordpress.com/tag/hexels/
You could say hexagons are sort of half way between pixels and circles.
I'm not sure how practical it is but it sure is an interesting idea.

[ptoing]

Make a forum search for "hixel"

[Friend]

: O These hixels from the simple splash art on the hexels.com thing look really interesting.  It kinda looks more organic, but still has the pixel feel.  Do they have any technical backing, or are just a part of the "silly restrictions" category?