YouTube channel creator @Creative Mindstorms has created a LEGO printer called the Pixelbot3000 that can automatically assemble complex LEGO brick mosaics, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or Katsushika Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa." This machine uses OpenAI's DALL-E 3 to generate images, and uses clever algorithms to convert the images into an arrangement of Lego bricks, ultimately achieving automatic assembly. Compared with previous similar projects, Pixelbot3000 has been improved in terms of code and artificial intelligence, making the operation easier, just enter the name of the work. This article will introduce in detail the working principle and production process of Pixelbot3000, as well as its application in LEGO art creation.
A YouTube channel creator @Creative Mindstorms has designed and built a Lego printer called the Pixelbot3000 that can automatically assemble complex mosaics of bricks, similar to Lego art sets like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Hokusai’s Huge waves.
Note: Screenshot from YouTube video
Compared to Jason Allemann's Bricasso, which launched eight years ago, the Pixelbot 3000 uses some custom code and artificial intelligence so generating LEGO mosaics requires simple input.
Pixelbot3000 users simply enter the name of the artwork they want to print. Input prompts are sent to OpenAI's DALL-E3, which code asks for a simplified image to be generated in a cartoon style, with image dimensions of 1024x1024 pixels.
The mosaic assembled by the printer is limited to a smaller grid of 32x32 Lego tiles, but the Pixelbot3000 code does not shrink the image generated by the DALL-E3, but splits the AI-generated image into 32x32 squares and samples each square. The color of the center pixel. This produces a high-contrast scaled image, ultimately resulting in a better mosaic pattern.
In the video, @Creative Mindstorms demonstrates the process of printing a LEGO creation of a robot holding a sunflower, below:
Enter command word
Generate image preview:
Debug print works:
Another limitation of using Lego as an art medium is that the plastic bricks only come in about 70 different colors, and the Pixelbot 3000 only uses 15 of them. The AI-generated scaled image needs to be processed one last time to find the best match of each colored pixel to the 1x1 LEGO tiles used to assemble the final mosaic. Designing, building and programming the Pixelbot 3000 may seem as laborious as assembling a LEGO mosaic art piece, which may contain more than 11,000 bricks.
The emergence of Pixelbot3000 shows the possibility of combining artificial intelligence and LEGO bricks, bringing new efficiency and creativity to LEGO art creation. Its ingenious algorithm and automated process undoubtedly provide great convenience for the production of large-scale LEGO mosaics. In the future, similar technologies may be applied to more fields and expand the boundaries of artistic creation.