Photo2PatternFree Minecraft map art generator
Minecraft map art generator that counts the staircase
A filled map holds 128 by 128 pixels and one byte each, and that byte is a base color times a shade — so a build that stays level reaches 61 colors and a build that steps up and down against its northern neighbor reaches 183. Both modes are here side by side, and every plan arrives with the vertical range the staircase demands, walked column by column and measured against the 384 layers a world actually has. Costs nothing, asks for no account, and the file is read in the tab you are reading this in.
- 100% free
- No signup
- 128 × 128 per map
- 61 flat, 183 stepped
- Height range walked
Press Ctrl+V anywhere on the page to drop in artwork copied out of another tab — no need to click the field first.
Each map is its own item and its own frame. 1 in this layout.
16,384 pixels in total, each one a block on the ground.
Each pixel sits level with, one above or one below the pixel north of it, tripling what the same 61 base colors can say. The cost is a vertical range you have to have room for, printed under the key.
Spreads the rounding error to neighboring cells. Closest overall color match, at the cost of visible speckle and more colors in use.
61 colors · one level
183 colors · stepped
244 colors · format ceiling
How to plan map art you can survey before you dig
Whether you are digging is the question the rest of this page exists to answer.
Choose how many maps the picture is allowed to occupy
A filled map at zoom level 0 covers exactly 128 by 128 blocks and there is no way to make it cover anything else, so the size control here counts maps rather than pixels. One map is 16,384 blocks and one item frame; three maps by three is 384 blocks square, 147,456 blocks and nine frames that all have to be filled and hung in the right order. Whichever layout you pick, the picture is cropped from the center to match it and the page tells you what percentage of the original survived that crop, because a portrait squeezed onto a square canvas is the failure this control exists to prevent.
Decide whether you are digging
The mode selector is the whole subject of this page. A build that keeps every block level with the block north of it reaches one shade of each base color, which is 61. A build that lets each block sit level with, one above or one below its northern neighbor reaches three shades, which is 183 — the same 61 colors saying three times as much, at the cost of a terrain profile you have to survey and dig. The third option shows all 244 the map format can store, including the fourth shade the game never writes, and is there as a ceiling to compare against rather than a plan to build.
Check the vertical range before you place a single block
Under the key is the number that decides whether the plan is real: the range in layers between the lowest and the highest block the chosen shades require, walked column by column from a row of primer blocks placed one step north of the picture. A column that happens to step downwards on every one of its 128 rows descends 128 layers, and a world only has 384 to work with from y minus 64 to y 319. The deepest single column is named so you can go and look at it, and if the range does not fit, the flat mode or a picture with fewer height reversals is the answer rather than a smaller canvas.
Technical specifications
| Canvas | 128 × 128 blocks per map at zoom level 0, one block per pixel and 16,384 blocks per map. 1 to 3 maps on each axis, so up to 384 blocks square — 147,456 pixels across 9 maps and 9 item frames |
|---|---|
| Palette | 61 base colors. A level build reaches 61; a build stepping up and down against its northern neighbor reaches 183; the map format itself stores 244, and the fourth shade, which the game never writes, is offered as a ceiling rather than as a plan |
| Shade rule | The shade of a pixel comes from the height of its block relative to the block immediately north of it, which orients the whole build and requires one course of primer blocks north of the picture that never appears on the map |
| Height profile | Every column of the plan is stepped out in turn and the highest and lowest block it reaches recorded, so the range comes with the worst column named and sits against the world's own floor and ceiling — y −64 up to y 319, which is 384 layers to spend |
| Dithering | Floyd–Steinberg by default, which is the reverse of the site's usual advice: a map pixel is one screen pixel inside a frame, so diffused error reads as a blend rather than as the speckle it becomes on anything you look at from arm's length |
| Cropping | Centered, to the exact aspect of the map layout you chose, with the surviving share of the original reported as a percentage. A canvas asking for more pixels than the crop has is refused rather than enlarged |
| Printing | One map comes off the printer as 6 A4 sheets of 53 × 78 blocks, each overlapping its neighbor by two rows and two columns so a count can be picked up across the join. The heavier rule falls every 16 blocks because a chunk is 16, and the top of every sheet is north |
| What leaves the browser | Nothing does. The center crop, the shade match and the column-by-column height walk all run against pixels that stayed in the tab |
Frequently asked questions
I finished the build, took the map, and later it showed terrain again. Why?
A map keeps redrawing itself whenever a player carrying it moves through the area it covers, so the moment somebody walks the region with your map in an inventory, it records whatever is there now. The fix is to lock it: a cartography table takes the filled map and a glass pane and hands back a copy that never updates again. Lock every map in the set before you hang any of them, and lock them before you start dismantling anything, because a map that has already re-recorded cannot be repaired without rebuilding the ground underneath it.
Does it matter which compass direction I build this facing?
It matters completely, and it is the mistake that costs people the most hours. The shade of a pixel is decided by the height of its block against the block immediately to the north of it, so north is baked into the plan rather than being a viewing preference — the top edge of every sheet this page prints is north. Rotate the build ninety degrees and every step that was meant to catch light now runs across the shading rule instead of along it, which does not produce a rotated picture, it produces noise. Lay the first row out with a compass in hand.
How much digging does staircasing actually mean?
Between nothing and 128 layers per column, and the profile under the key tells you which end of that your picture sits at before you commit. Each pixel may sit level with, one above or one below the pixel north of it, so a column that steps down through every one of its rows falls 128 blocks by the southern edge, while a column of flat sky never leaves its starting layer. Photographs with strong horizontal banding are cheap; photographs with a lot of vertical detail are expensive. There is also one course of blocks north of the picture that never appears on the map at all — the first real row needs something to be measured against.
Why does a flat build only get 61 colors when the palette has more?
Because a flat build only ever produces one of the four shades. The color stored for each pixel is a base color multiplied by a shade, and a block that is level with its northern neighbor always takes the same multiplier, so 61 base colors give 61 results and no arrangement of flat blocks gives a sixty-second. This is why flat map art looks posterised in a way that block-built pixel art does not: the palette is not small because the game is short of blocks, it is small because a level surface throws away two thirds of the color a staircase would have given you.
The third mode offers 244 colors but refuses to compute the height profile. Why?
Because one of the four shades is not something you can build. Three of the multipliers correspond to a block sitting below, level with or above its northern neighbor; the fourth, ×135, is in the file format and the game never writes it — the wiki says outright that it does not occur naturally and that reaching it takes an external map editor. A column containing it therefore has no y-coordinates to walk out, so the mode stays available as the ceiling the format could theoretically reach, the profile stays blank, and the number of affected pixels is shown.
Where exactly does one map stop and the next one start?
On a grid fixed in world coordinates, not wherever you happen to be standing. A map at zoom level 0 does not center itself on the player who crafts it; its 128 by 128 area snaps to a fixed alignment, so a build placed by eye usually straddles four maps and needs four times the maps to show it. Find the boundary before you start — walk the area with a blank map and watch where the recorded region ends — then stake the picture out inside it. This is also why the plan is offered one map at a time rather than as one giant sheet: each map is a separate item you craft, fill, lock and hang.
Can a face survive 128 pixels and this palette?
A face survives the resolution and struggles with the palette, which is the opposite of what people expect. 128 pixels across is more than enough for a recognizable portrait — a great deal of pixel art works in a quarter of that. The problem is that the base colors were chosen to describe terrain, so they are heavy on terracotta, stone and wood and thin on the pinks and warm tans a face is made of. Staircasing is what rescues it, because the extra shades of the few usable base colors are precisely the tonal steps skin needs, and error diffusion, on by default here, does the rest.
About map colors, shades and the staircase
A filled map is not a picture of your build, it is a byte per pixel, and the byte names one of 61 base colors together with one of four shades. The base color is a property of whichever block is topmost at that spot; the shade is decided by comparing that block’s height with the height of the block immediately to its north. Two things follow immediately and both are load-bearing. The palette is not “every block in the game” but 61 groups of blocks that share a value, which is why the key here names one obtainable block per color and invites you to substitute. And the build has a compass direction welded into it: turn it and the shading stops describing the picture, because a step that used to run along the rule now runs across it. The first row also has nothing to its north to be measured against, so a real build carries one course of primer blocks that never shows up on the map.
Staircasing is the entire difference between map art that looks like a poster and map art that looks like a photograph. Stay level everywhere and every pixel takes the same multiplier, so 61 colors is all there is, no matter how many blocks you own. Let each block sit level with, one above or one below its northern neighbor and the same 61 base colors produce 183 — three tonal steps of every hue, which is exactly what a gradient or a face needs and what a flat build can never fake. The bill arrives as terrain. Each downward step costs a layer, so a column that happens to descend through all 128 of its rows ends 128 blocks below where it started, against the 384 placeable layers a world holds from y minus 64 to y 319. That is the figure the profile under the key exists to give you before rather than after, and it is the reason two pictures of the same size can differ by an afternoon of digging. A fourth shade exists in the format, bringing the theoretical total to 244, but no arrangement of blocks produces it — the wiki is explicit that it does not occur naturally — so it is offered here as a ceiling to compare your plan against and deliberately not as something to survey.
Two practical things sink more of these builds than the palette does. Maps re-record themselves whenever a player carrying one walks the ground they cover, so every map in a set has to be locked at a cartography table with a glass pane before anything is hung or dismantled. And a map at zoom level 0 does not center on the person who crafts it — its area is pinned to a fixed grid in world coordinates, so a picture laid out by eye routinely straddles four maps and needs four times the frames. Neither has anything to do with color, and both are why the plan here comes one map at a time. If what you want is the picture standing up in the landscape rather than hanging in a frame, that is a different palette and a different set of counts on the block wall generator. The underlying problem — a photograph meeting a small palette somebody else fixed — is the same one that the console and display palettes pose, where the numbers are likewise a specification rather than a measurement; faces are where every one of those palettes struggles first, and the brick portrait page is about nothing else; and if you want to see how far a picture can be pushed when the output has no color at all, that is text art.
Product and company names shown here are the trademarks of their respective owners. Photo2Pattern is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of them.
What leaves this tab
Your picture is opened by JavaScript running in the tab you are reading this in. It is never uploaded, never sent to a server and never stored anywhere — there is no upload step to undo, because there is no upload. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.
Nothing is remembered between visits either. The map layout, the build mode and which tile you were looking at live in the page and vanish with it, because no part of this tool writes to browser storage or asks a server to hold anything on your behalf.