Computer-Aided Lego Art Project
rsk writes "Justin Voskuhl, a Google engineer, in a 2-fold bid to fight boredom and figure out something to cover a large barren wall in his living room, one weekend developed a Java program using an annealing algorithm to figure out the best layout and colors of Lego blocks to reproduce a source image exclusively in Lego blocks inside a frame. He plans to release the source code soon. I probably would have just painted the wall ..."
OK, I have to show off - I did something similar four years ago. :)
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I'm a much better programmer now, just for the record.
Actually, it's easier than that. :) Model with 1x1 blocks on the first pass, using standard interpolation limiting to your available palette colors, then combine horizontally adjacent blocks with the same color as 1xN blocks according to availability.
And then write it in C++ instead of Java.