xModel Tools - Pixel Mapper

Pixel Mapper turns your phone into an automatic layout tool for xLights. Point your camera at your light display, and the app lights each WS2811 / WS2812 pixel, finds it in the camera image with computer vision, and builds a ready-to-import xLights Custom model — no manual clicking pixel by pixel. Perfect for Christmas light displays, props, matrices, megatrees, and any irregular pixel layout that's painful to map by hand. HOW IT WORKS 1. Target — enter your controller's IP and pixel count. Output goes over DDP or sACN / E1.31, the same protocols xLights and FPP already speak. 2. Scan — choose a mode: • Fast (base-3): every pixel lights in every frame, colored by one base-3 digit of its index, so all pixels are identified in only ~log3(N)+2 frames (about 500 pixels in 8 frames). Two checksum digits reject misreads. • Sequential: light one pixel at a time and find the single bright blob. Slower, but dead simple and rock solid. Both modes subtract a black reference frame to ignore ambient hotspots. 3. Review — see the detected layout over your photo, drop bad points, tap to place or move a node, and re-scan individual pixels. Zoom and pan to fine-tune. 4. Export — save a standard xLights .xmodel file that imports into both old and new versions of xLights. WHY PIXEL MAPPER • No more mapping hundreds of pixels by hand. • Works with the gear you already own — any DDP or sACN/E1.31 pixel controller. • Fast base-3 scan maps large models in seconds of capture. • Checksum-protected so misread pixels get rejected, not placed wrong. • Best results in a dim room; the app locks camera exposure and focus where the device supports it. • Captures a clean 2D layout from a single camera angle. REQUIREMENTS • A WS2811 / WS2812 (or compatible) pixel controller reachable on your network. • The controller set to receive DDP or sACN / E1.31. • A phone on the same network as the controller. Pixel Mapper is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the xLights project. xLights is a trademark of its respective owners.