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How do you generate Density puzzle bitmaps? I've seen a lot of Density puzzles (such as this one and want to know how the images were made.

bobble
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Matt Undis
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it’s not a puzzle – Beastly Gerbil Mar 22 '20 at 19:58
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    It is however a puzzle-related question, which is allowed. – Matt Undis Mar 22 '20 at 20:02
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    I just use Excel, saving it as PNG via Paint. – Jens Mar 22 '20 at 20:03
  • @MattUndis hey welcome to puzzling! This is related to puzzles, but not a puzzle/a question about puzzles. It could be improved by for instance linking an example, and the likely hood is that the answer can be found online, if not I recommend checking out The Sphinxes Lair, (puzzling.se chat) and asking over there, people will probably be able to help more there! – Beastly Gerbil Mar 22 '20 at 20:05
  • I agree with Beastly Gerbil, ask it in the Sphinx's Lair. – Dooper Mar 22 '20 at 20:26
  • @Jens Excel? How!! – Matt Undis Mar 22 '20 at 20:37
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    Questions pertaining to the creation of puzzles - which may broadly include how they are designed, written, drawn, or presented - are entirely within the topic scope here. Why would this question be off topic? Having said that, a (link to an) example of a relevant Density image would certainly be helpful. (@BeastlyGerbil) – Rubio Mar 23 '20 at 14:53
  • @Rubio this might be a bit 50/50, but personally I’m not sure this relates enough to puzzle creation to be on topic, as it’s asking how a single image is created, not a puzzle in general. I can see why it could be on topic though – Beastly Gerbil Mar 23 '20 at 14:59
  • A Density puzzle consists of colored squares. It is simple to make colored square cells in Excel. – Jens Mar 23 '20 at 23:00
  • Ideas: a) resize and color excel cells, b) color pixels in paint then zoom in and screenshot it to properly resize, c) make a simple python script to do it for you. (I've used all three ideas in the past, in my math.stackexchange questions and answers.) – Vepir Jun 04 '21 at 00:31

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glad you're interested in the Density™ puzzles! :)

The way I generated the original versions of the puzzles was to use MS Paint, create a bitmap of 72 x 72 pixels and then use the pencil tool, set to the smallest size (should be 1 pixel) to fill in the puzzle. Once that's done, zoom out so that the bitmap is reasonably sized, then use the Snipping Tool (or your other favourite screen-shotting tool) to generate a .png file.

Remember to keep the original bitmap file for the puzzle, in case there are any accidental errors which need to be corrected. Happy puzzling!

Dmihawk
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