Pinscreen

Pinscreen turns every picture into a bed of fine square pins. Each pin's height follows the brightness of the picture at its place and its head carries the picture's colour, so the active picture stands out from the board as a real relief.

How it works

A waiting picture is a flat grey bed of pin heads flush with the board. When it becomes the active one, a soft wave crosses it and pushes the pins out into relief in full colour; leaving lets them sink back. The pins are lit by the lights of your scene, so a low side light draws long shadows across the relief. In Press mode the cursor presses the pins in where it passes, like a hand on the toy.

Settings

• Pins: how many pins run across a picture.
• Relief: how far the brightest pins stand out.
• Base: how far the darkest pins stand out, as a share of the brightest.
• Pin size: the width of a pin against the gap between them.
• Roughness and Metalness: the finish of the pins, from matte plastic to steel.
• Board color: the board the pins stand in.
• Change time, Wave and Slant: the speed, softness and angle of the change wave.

Use it for

Product and tech showcases, tactile brand pages, portraits that visitors want to touch. A single picture in the same style is the Pinscreen image; for a relief made of lines, see Wire Relief.