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Now the cellphone becomes a sketch pad… sort of

A cellphone manufacturer has launched an application that will allow people to draw simple pixelated images on their cellphones using a standard keypad

By Anil Ananthaswamy

4 March 2009

Now you can fill those empty hours on the train or bus by making pixel art on your phone

Now the cellphone becomes a sketch pad... sort of

HAVE you ever found yourself stuck on a train, with nothing but a cellphone for company and no wireless connection? A new tool being tested this week in Japan could help ease your boredom, by letting you create art using nothing but the buttons on your phone鈥檚 keypad.

While you can draw pictures with your fingers on an iPhone鈥檚 touch screen using one of the available applications, the majority of the world鈥檚 population use conventional cellphones. So Ivan Poupyrev of Sony CSL in Tokyo and artist Karl Willis of Tsukuba University in Ibaraki set out to develop a drawing tool for simple cellphones. 鈥淲e wanted to have an application that could be used anywhere in the world 鈥� in Africa, Vietnam or India,鈥� says Poupyrev.

The result is software called , which allows people to create images using the 12 keys found on every standard cellphone, plus the joystick or navigator button. The software divides the screen into a grid of 12 pixels, each controlled by one button. In the case of a greyscale drawing, each pixel can be cycled from black to dark grey to light grey to white by repeatedly pressing the relevant button.

鈥淧eople can create images with the 12 keys found on every cellphone plus the navigator button鈥�

The joystick is used to control the size of the grid. Users start with a grid that fills the screen and mark some of the pixels. The resulting 12-pixel image can then be shrunk down, leaving the rest of the screen blank. Using the joystick, this small image can be moved to any location on the screen. Users then build up a full-screen image by making multiple 12-pixel images and positioning them.

Pixel images are ubiquitous in advertising and signage in Japan, where many people grew up with the early Nintendo games with pixel-based animation. 鈥淧eople still appreciate the simplicity and the abstract qualities of pixel drawing,鈥� says Poupyrev. 鈥淚t has become a huge part of our culture. We are just trying to tap into that.鈥�

As an experiment, Sony is releasing the product on three Japanese cellphone networks in monochrome only. The full-colour version is planned for the end of the year. Poupyrev is also in discussions with Sony Ericsson about extending the service to Europe.

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