Terrazzo pattern generator

A floor of stone chips, without the polishing. Choose the sizes and the number of chips, how angular they are and how much room they leave, and export a seamless terrazzo pattern as SVG, PNG or CSS.

Open in the generator How it works

Chips of turquoise, pink and yellow stone on a dark ground

Floors made from leftovers

Terrazzo is a floor made of chips of marble, granite and glass set in cement or resin and ground smooth. It grew out of the practice of Venetian workers, who reused offcuts of stone from larger jobs by pressing them into a bed of clay and polishing the surface. Today it is back in fashion on floors, countertops and printed fabric.

What gives terrazzo its look is the mix of sizes: a few large chips, many medium ones and a fine scatter of dust between them, all in a handful of colors on a plain ground.

How the generator builds them

Ornamatic first draws a list of chip sizes, from your largest to your smallest, with large chips rarer than small ones. It places the largest first, each in a random spot where it does not touch the others, and then fills the gaps with smaller and smaller ones. Distances are measured around the edges of the tile, so a chip that crosses the edge continues on the other side and the pattern is seamless.

Every chip is an irregular polygon with five to nine sides. The angularity setting makes the chips nearly round or sharp-cornered. Colors are assigned at random, or by size.

What you can adjust

Largest and smallest — the size range of the chips.
Chips — the most chips in one tile.
Angularity — nearly round to sharp.
Gap — the room left between the chips.
Colors — mixed at random, by size or one color; any palette; a shuffle for a new arrangement.
Period proportions — the shape of the tile, in advanced mode.