Alistair

You can use Excel to create the codes that you need for any graphic. Simply allocate a matrix of cells, place an "X" or anything in the cell and create formulae to extract the data.

Originally intended for character sets, this idea was originally presented in a design idea by Alberto Ricci Bitti in EDN here:
http://www.edn.com/index.asp...esignideas

and improved on (I hope) by me, again in EDN here:
http://www.edn.com/article/C...ryid=44217

The idea formed the basis for a chapter in my book
Excel by Example : A Microsoft Excel Cookbook for Electronics Engineers published by Newnes/Elsevier, ISBN 0750677562

If you follow the steps you can build quite a nice application where you don't need to place Xs but can double click the cell to "blacken" it so it acts like turning a pixel on or off. In this way you can get the complete visual effect. Using the examples you can even create the software file to load into your project.

-Aubrey Kagan