What is this?
Hold a grid of glass tiles in front of a photo of your pet. Everything behind the glass gets averaged down to one colour per tile, so that part turns into a pixel-art animal — while the rest of the photo stays as it is. One picture, your real pet and their 8-bit version side by side.
It is not just for cats. Dogs, rabbits, hamsters, plushies, dinner — anything works.
How to play
- Tap Photo to pick a picture (Video works too). No picture handy? Sample cycles through the twelve cats of the Chinchilla Empire.
- Drag the glass with one finger, or with the mouse on a computer.
- Pinch out with two fingers to bring the glass closer to you. The closer it gets, the bigger the tiles look — and the more it tilts, as if you were really holding it up. Twist two fingers to rotate it. On a computer, scroll with the pointer over the glass to move it closer.
- Pixel size changes how coarse the grid is. Fine, and the face comes through clearly; coarse, and you can barely tell what animal it was.
- Glass has three looks: glass brick, frosted and dots.
- Holding shows or hides the hand holding the glass. The hand is behind the glass, so the fingertips that reach into it get pixelated along with everything else.
- Happy with it? Hit Save. Some devices also get Record (up to 20 seconds).
Your photo never leaves your device
Nothing is uploaded. The photo or video you choose is processed entirely inside your own browser, and nothing is kept once you close the page.
Where it came from
Someone held a square-patterned glass panel in front of their cat, and the cat turned into pixel art. The bumps in the glass flatten each square down to a single colour, so it really does look like the resolution dropped. This page does the same thing to a photo.