Tesselation converts color or greyscale images into seamlessly repeating tiles, suitable for graphic backgrounds for Web pages. It’s a filter that works with popular paint programs like Photoshop, Color-It, Fractal Design Painter, and The Cheaper Image. This manual assumes that you are familiar with your paint software.
You can check for new releases of Tesselation at ccn.cs.dal.ca/~aa731/tesselation.html.
Installing
Drop Tesselation into your paint program’s Plug-Ins folder. When you start your paint program, the Filter menu should contain an item called Flaming Pear, and that should lead to a sub-menu containing Tesselation.
Using
Start with an image in RGB or greyscale mode, and select a rectangular part of the image that you want to make into a tile. The tile, when finished, will be smaller than your selection, because the right and bottom edges of the selection will be used to make a smooth seam. So, choose an area about 20% bigger than the tile you want.
Select the Tesseltation filter. A dialog box something like this will appear:
The exact settings you see will depend on the size of the selection. Click OK. Your original selection will turn into a tile, and a black margin will replace the right and bottom edges.
Examining
Bring the filter back and behold the controls.
The big square: If you drag the little red grapple around, it changes the size of the tile. You’ll see the size of the tile in red numbers, and the size of the margins in blue.
The margins are used to blend the edges of the tile so they match up smoothly. If you experiment with the control, you’ll notice that the tile can’t be narrower than the side margin, nor shorter than the bottom margin.
Text boxes: Below the big square, you can type the dimensions of the tile in directly. If you type a size that's too big or too small, Tesselation will display in the the big square the dimensions it will use.
Wrap top & bottom and
Wrap sides: Usually you will want to make tiles that repeat vertically and horizontally, but you can do just one if you prefer. For example, you could make a wide graphic that only repeats vertically, and use it to make a stripe down the side of a Web page.
Blending: This popup menu offers a linear blend for the edges of the tile as the default choice. If you find that produces a harsh, obvious-looking seam, there are two softer blending curves you can use instead.
OK: Applies the effect to your image.
Cancel: Dismisses the filter, and leaves the image unchanged.
Register: Allows you to type in a registration code.
Version History
Version 1.1 January 1997
The first public release.
Finding out more
• Besides Photoshop 2.5 or later, this filter also works with Color It, Fractal Design Painter, and The Cheaper Image. The latter is a simple, free paint program available online from MacUser’s web site; check http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/software/ to download it.
• Tesselation is shareware. If you would like to continue using it, you can register it for US$15 by running the Register program that came with it. Or, if you have a credit card and a web browser, you can register online at this address:
http://kagi.direct.net/cgi-bin/register1.cgi?LB
• You can check for new releases of Tesselation at ccn.cs.dal.ca/~aa731/tesselation.html. If you have ideas for improvements, or commentary, or questions, please email the author at lloyd@kagi.com.
