English · 한국어
Formal name TrilLuminance (cube) · codename Trilume. A 3D barcode (actually 2.5D) that stores data in the luminance rank of three rhombic faces per hexagonal cell. Status: encoder, decoder and live camera scanner all running — the browser generator and scanner are live.
Each hexagonal cell is split by a rhombille tiling into three rhombi — T (top), L (left), R (right) — and data rides on the relative luminance order of those three faces. Three faces permute 3! = 6 ways, so one cell carries one base-6 digit (log₂6 ≈ 2.585 bits).
The result looks like a field of isometric cubes, each lit from a different direction. The encoding principle and the visual are the same thing.
This is not a QR replacement. Rhombic cells lose to square modules on density, and that argument is settled. Two things are worth having instead:
- Aesthetics — a code you would actually put on a wall.
- Differential-encoding robustness — data lives in the relative order of three faces within a cell, not in absolute luminance. Any monotonic tone transform — global illumination change, gamma, printer/display tone mapping — leaves the order intact, and therefore the data.
The data contract is only the order between faces and a minimum separation (Δmin). Inside that, a renderer does what it likes: jitter absolute luminance per cell, apply color, gradient the inside of a face, animate over time. Only the order after conversion to relative luminance has to survive.
That freedom is the point of the format.
| Type | Silhouette | Net payload (ECC-M) |
|---|---|---|
| O | Hexagonal field | 18 / 39 / 65 / 97 B (k = 6 / 8 / 10 / 12) |
| A | Triangular silhouette | 31 / 62 / 101 B (k = 6 / 8 / 10) |
| K | Hexagram (A union inverted A) | 43 / 86 / 138 B (k = 6 / 8 / 10) |
| Y | Single isometric cube | 31 / 98 / 141 B (n = 13 / 21 / 25) |
| C | Notched hexagon (Type O family, close-range) | 130 / 172 / 220 / 255 B (k = 14 / 16 / 18 / 20) |
All types share the same data contract and differ only in silhouette. Each can carry a fallback QR printed alongside, so a reader that cannot decode the TL code still has a path.
K is a triangle unioned with its 180-degree image. At the same k it holds more cells than A, so it carries the largest payload, and its six points double as detection anchors.
The Y selector also offers True 3D → H, with 1–6 unique data faces,
2/3 tones, ECC L/M/H and H0…H8 grids (13…45 cells per side). With the generator's default
layout policy, ECC-M payloads are 3 / 21 / 45 / 78 / 119 / 123 / 185 / 255 / 333 B for three faces
and 6 / 42 / 90 / 156 / 238 / 330 / 440 / 510 / 666 B for six faces.
Two- to five-face H5+ and six-face H7+ place four square finders, format and references inside the
unchanged face grid. Legacy frame H remains readable. The library default finder:'frame'
keeps the old capacities; the generator uses finder:'auto'.
H is a separate wire format and does not use Y's QR inset, locators or shading. H has its own lighting controls;
rotation fill lights data/reference tones together while protecting black/white finder marks.
Standard PNG/SVG and snapshots contain only the visible H faces. The Y group's 3D data section
exports complete PNG/SVG cube nets, glTF 2.0 models and Minecraft .schem structures with
nearest-color concrete, not complete worlds. The preview panel provides screen-axis X/Y(default)/composite
rotation, speed and independent pose/perspective controls. New H views default to 4° perspective and auto-rotation.
Automatic X/Y and gyro speeds are 75/60°/s through H5, 60/45°/s for H6–H7, and 50/35°/s for H8.
Manual speed overrides persist until the speed reset button restores the resolution-based defaults.
X/Y tilt compensation ranges from 0–35° (default 17.5°) with its own reset; gyro uses a fixed 35°.
Aligned horizontal/vertical layouts suppress the secondary tilt on their corresponding rotation axis.
H supports corner QR, but not inset QR. Corner QR preserves the cube's center and scene size.
Auto-rotation can be exported as a silent, closed-loop MP4 at 720×720, 1080×1080 or 1440×1440 in AVC/MP4-capable browsers. Transparent backgrounds
are replaced by checkerboard/green(default)/blue/magenta, not encoded as alpha video.
Video FPS cards offer 24, 30, 60 (default) and 120; 60/120 requires WebCodecs AVC support with no silent FPS downgrade.
X/Y and gyro paths close after 360/speed seconds, including secondary-axis motion, for seamless repetition.
Isometric (default), horizontal and vertical arrangements separate the physical display from logical face IDs.
Horizontal/vertical use at most four side faces and offer centered-seam alignment presets with screen Y/X rotation.
Two-face codes can repeat on opposite sides in six-face rendering, including a shared image on both caps.
Other blank faces accept independent PNG/JPEG/WebP/SVG images, 45° rotation, contain/fill/cover and background colors; five-face H has one blank face.
The capacity figures above describe three-tone 3/6-face modes with the generator's automatic finder policy only. New 1/2/4/5-face modes use separately identified
pair/group packets and require an updated scanner; existing 3/6-face bytes remain unchanged.
Images stay in the current page
and are included in visible-view exports, full nets, embedded glTF, rotation video and nearest-concrete schematic output.
The mask defaults to 7 for new generator state; automatic size still prioritizes strong ECC. H previews use cached
GPU face textures when available, with the exact scene renderer retained for exports and a Canvas fallback.
See the H spec.
The scanner collects H faces across R2 camera frames or consecutive photos. It releases a
payload only after all required unique 1–6 faces and full RS/CRC verification; partial faces expire after 90 seconds.
Y processing pauses while valid H partial collection is active and resumes after reset/expiry.
Verified H URLs follow the TL opening policy; ordinary fallback QR URLs remain manual. Changing the display language does not reopen the URL.
The camera guide shows a bottom-center zigzag face net and briefly overlays detected face IDs
using the observed perspective; stale or mismatched camera geometry hides the labels.
Dark-data candidate crowding is reduced by ranking up to 512 components before the bounded
128-component contour stage. This does not relax face, ECC or CRC validation.
Camera and photo collections are separate. A confirmed non-Y/H reader QR hint or verified N7 can
temporarily switch the camera to R1 without changing the saved R2 preference; restarting restores it.
Unhinted QR content is not used to guess the family. Synthetic and worker checks are not a real-camera
recognition-rate or mobile-FPS guarantee.
The camera FPS badge counts completed processing results in a five-second window, not camera frames
or H detector calls. It resets on session/engine changes and dims when results stop. Expand Performance
diagnostics for local-only rates and preparation/service/queue timing; no image, decoded content or device
identifier is included. The scanner avoids unused luminance percentile work without changing pixel values.
An experimental two-frame preparation queue is lab-only and off by default: developers may set
localStorage.setItem('tlscan.r2.pipelineDepth', '2') on the lab origin and reload; remove that key to restore
the default. Formal pages always use depth one. More overlap can raise CPU use and result age, so this is
not a claim of higher recognition rate or 10 FPS on phones. H detection intervals and Y/QR routing stay unchanged.
| Milestone | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|
| M0 | Generator — layout frozen | complete |
| M1 | Synthetic decoder | complete — src/decoder/, regression tests in test/ |
| M2 | Real-camera scanner | running — tlscan.estre.so |
| M3 | Style presets · packaging | in progress — 4 presets |
node tools/dev-server.mjs # http://localhost:8765 — development (index.html + src/)
node tools/build-single.mjs # dist/trilume.html — one file, opens over file:// with no server
npm test # bounded default checks
npm run test:full # release functional gate; requires corpus, no skips
npm run test:bench # opt-in performance experiments, not the release gateA filming print sheet (A4, QR then TLcube, same on-paper size) lives at print/tlcube-poster.html. It opens over file://. See print/README.md.
Vanilla JavaScript with in-repository Node.js build scripts and zero runtime dependencies. The generator bundles into a single HTML file.
Export is deterministic — identical input yields byte-identical PNG/SVG. That is why pixels come from an in-repo rasterizer (src/raster.js) rather than a browser canvas, and PNG encoding is also in-repo (src/png.js). Canvas is used only for the on-screen preview.
Encoding path: encode.js (payload → RS over GF(211) codeword → per-cell digits) → scene.js (digits → shape list) → canvas preview / raster.js + png.js / svg.js. Render self-check lives in verify.js, which reads the rasterized pixels back and confirms every cell's luminance ranking matches the intended digit, using the same sample-disc median statistic the decoder is specified to use.
One-face H (mode: 1) combines two logical scan regions on XM into a single RS/CRC-checked packet; H0 is not available in this mode. With strong ECC, the default 19-byte URL selects H3 (25×25), with 19 B in two tones or 27 B in three tones. Blank-face images and opposite-face repetition use the same 3D/export mapping. Existing 2–6-face wire formats remain unchanged. See SPEC §13.9 for the exact layout and capacity table. RS/CRC checks integrity, not cryptographic authenticity.
The normative format spec is SPEC.md — geometry, symbol encoding, layout, capacity, error correction, and conformance requirements. Every numeric table in it is generated from src/, and the wire contract is pinned by snapshots in test/.
Implementing only a decoder still counts as a conforming implementation (SPEC §11). Adoption starts with the reading side, so partial implementations are deliberately not excluded.
Code and spec in this repository are released under the Apache License 2.0. Copyright 2026 SoliEstre.
Patents: as of 2026-08-09, SoliEstre holds no patents and has no patent applications pending on this format. That statement is unconditional — anyone may implement this format, whole or in part, decoder-only or not, commercially or not. (Apache-2.0 §3 separately grants an explicit patent license for the distributed code.)
Third party: src/vendor/jcodd.js is an unmodified vendored copy of jcodd and remains under its original MIT license (full text in the file header).
Trademark notice: QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.
Generator: tlcube.estre.so · Overview: tl.estre.so · Scanner: tlscan.estre.so