About Rubik Mosaic Generator

Rubik Mosaic Generator is a free browser-based tool that turns any photograph into a mosaic built from real 3×3 Rubik's Cubes. Upload an image, choose how many cubes wide the mosaic should be, and the app quantises every pixel to the six official cube-sticker colours (white, yellow, red, orange, blue, green) using Floyd–Steinberg dithering for photo-accurate shading.

What it does

Converts photos into cube-accurate mosaic patterns.
Generates a printable, cube-by-cube build sheet with sticker layouts.
Renders a side-by-side original vs. mosaic viewer so you can compare fidelity.
Exports a PDF you can carry to your build table.

Who it's for

Cubers who want to build wall-sized cube art, teachers running maths-and-art classroom projects, and hobbyists trying to see how far six colours can go. Everything runs locally in your browser — your images never leave your device.

Who built it

Rubik Mosaic Generator is maintained by the team behind trend2print.com, a small studio that builds print-friendly creative tools. Have feedback? Visit our contact page.

How it works under the hood

When you upload an image, the tool first resizes it to the target mosaic resolution using a high-quality Lanczos filter. It then converts each pixel from sRGB into the CIE L*a*b* perceptual colour space, which measures colour difference the way human eyes actually see it — so a warm skin tone rounds to orange or red rather than accidentally jumping to green because its raw RGB values happen to be numerically close. Once every pixel has its nearest cube colour, an optional Floyd–Steinberg dithering pass spreads the rounding error into surrounding pixels, which is what lets the six-colour palette appear to show shades of pink, brown, teal, and grey when you step back from the wall.

The second half of the tool is the solver. Each 3×3 tile in the mosaic becomes a target "face pattern" that a real Rubik's Cube has to be manipulated into showing. Because we only care about one face — not the whole cube — the solver runs a short depth-limited search using standard face turns (U, D, L, R, F, B) and returns the shortest sequence that lands the requested stickers on the front face. Solving is done lazily, in the background, one page of cubes at a time, so the interface stays responsive even for thousand-cube mosaics.

Why we built it

Cube mosaics have been a niche art form since the late 2000s, but every existing generator we could find either required desktop software, uploaded your images to a server, or hid the move sequences behind a paywall. We wanted something that was free, ran entirely in the browser, produced a printable build sheet you can bring to a maker space, and treated the process with the same seriousness that dedicated cubers already bring to their speed-solving.

What it isn't

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Rubik's Brand Ltd or any cube manufacturer. "Rubik's Cube" is a trademark of its respective owner. The generator is a fan tool built by hobbyists for hobbyists. If you're looking to buy the specific cubes used in real-world mosaic builds, please support the manufacturer of your choice directly.

Credits

The dithering implementation is based on Floyd and Steinberg's original 1976 paper. The perceptual colour matching uses CIEDE2000 distance. Cube solving techniques draw on decades of speedcubing community research — special thanks to the WCA and the many volunteers who have documented cube algorithms over the years.

Mosaic Generator — Upload a photo and turn it into a printable Rubik's Cube mosaic.
All Guides — The full library of cube mosaic tutorials and references.
Gallery — See example mosaics built with the generator.
Build Guide — Step-by-step instructions for assembling a physical cube mosaic.
Portrait Tutorial — Cropping, contrast and resolution that make a face readable in six colours.
Mounting Guide — Weight loads, cell grids, wall fixings and lighting without glare.
Build Methods — Sticker swapping versus solving: time, cost and durability compared.
Workshop Guide — A 90-minute lesson plan for building a mosaic with a group.
Buying Guide — Which bulk cubes to buy and how much a mosaic will cost.
Mosaic Planner — Cube counts, wall size, cost and build time for every mosaic size.
Colour Guide — How six sticker colours become skin tones, brown, grey and teal.
Cube Notation — Read and execute any U, D, L, R, F, B move sequence.
History of Cube Pixel Art — How cube mosaics grew from a 1974 design exercise into a pixel-art medium.
Dithering Explained — Why Floyd–Steinberg error diffusion makes six colours look like a photograph.
Choosing Bulk Cubes — What to check before ordering hundreds of cubes for a wall.
Case Study: Mona Lisa — 384 cubes, warm skin tones and a dark backdrop at 16 × 24.
Case Study: Einstein — 400 cubes from a monochrome photo using a four-value palette.
Case Study: Sunset — 384 cubes, horizon banding and how dithering fixed it.
Case Study: Logo Wall — A 144-cube brand wall built in a single day.
FAQ — Common questions about cubes, colours, and printing.
Contact — Get in touch with the team.
Privacy — How your uploads and data are handled.
Terms — Terms of use for the generator.