Seamless pattern maker
Choose a picture of a texture, such as fabric, grass, stone or paper, and turn it into a tile that repeats without seams. Blend the edges, or make a mirrored tile that always fits, and use the offset view or a 3 × 3 repeat to see whether any seam is left.
Runs in your browser: nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
How to use it
- Choose or drop a texture photo, ideally evenly lit and taken straight on.
- Pick a Method: blend the edges (keeps the look), mirror tile (always seamless) or offset by half (to check).
- For blending, set the Blend width: wider hides seams better but softens more of the picture.
- Set Repeat to 2 × 2 or 3 × 3 to see the tile repeated, and look for seams and repeated spots.
- Set Repeat back to 1 tile and download.
How it works
- Offset: every pixel (x, y) takes the colour of ((x + w / 2) mod w, (y + h / 2) mod h).
- Blend: the share of the offset copy at column x of a tile w wide is 1 − t / f, where t = min(x, w − 1 − x) / w is the distance to the nearer edge and f the blend width; it is 1 on the edge and 0 from f onwards. The same is done for rows, and the larger of the two is used.
- Mirror: the result is 2w × 2h; the right half is the picture flipped left to right, the bottom half flipped top to bottom.
Example
A tile 8 pixels wide with a blend width of 25 %: column 0 takes 100 % from the offset copy, column 1 takes 1 − 0.125 / 0.25 = 50 %, columns 2 to 5 take none, column 6 again takes 50 % and column 7 takes 100 %.
A 300 × 200 picture gives a 300 × 200 tile with blending, a 600 × 400 tile with mirroring, and a 900 × 600 file with blending and 3 × 3 repeat.
Tips
- Even textures (sand, grass, concrete, fabric) blend almost invisibly; pictures with one big object do not.
- If a dark or bright spot repeats in the 3 × 3 view, crop the photo to a more even part first.
- Square tiles are the easiest to use in CSS backgrounds, 3D software and print-on-demand designs.
Frequently asked questions
How does blending the edges make a tile seamless?
The tool makes a copy of the picture shifted by half its width and height. In that copy the left and right edges come from neighbouring pixels in the middle of the photo, so they continue each other, and so do the top and bottom. Near the edges the tile shows that copy, in the middle the original, and the blend width sets how gradually one turns into the other.
When should I use the mirror tile?
When the seams must be perfect and symmetry does not matter. The picture is placed next to its mirror images, so every edge meets its own reflection. The tile is twice as wide and twice as tall as the picture.
What is the offset view for?
It shifts the picture by half, so its old edges meet in a cross through the middle. If you see a hard line there, the picture does not tile as it is. Use it to check a texture you made elsewhere, or to retouch the cross in an editor and then shift it back.
Should I download the 3 × 3 repeat?
Use the repeat to judge the pattern; the file you download contains what you see, so set Repeat back to 1 tile before you download the tile itself. A 2 × 2 or 3 × 3 file is handy as a ready-made larger background.
Is my picture uploaded?
No. The picture is processed in your browser and stays on your device.