JanaOV2640 > ESP32 > Serial (pixeldata) > python (png assembly) > PNG. Now working backwards to have the ESP32 building the PNG. This was (is) a journey, but sooo close to a self-contained, esp32 pixel-art camera!! ._. (thanks @fionafokus <3)
NO WAY, it works :'D I can now take indexed PNG images with custom color-palettes on an ESP32! Next up, SD card storage (currently they are bytewise transferred through serial) and live preview on a display. Then maybe just build a small custom board, like a 10$ pixel-art-camera? C:
funfact: the resulting image still contains the full 8 bit grayscale data, it just indexes it to an arbitrary amount of colors! Eight in the image above. This should allow me to use any color palette up to 256 colors with mapping curves, furthermore, I can also capture RGB images and use color-matching to try to match RGB-palettes to the real photo!
proof-of-concept C:
(Quality is still terrible, many in camera parameters need to be worked on, it’s terrible slow, but, it works!)
sungo 
@janamarie I think in the next pcbs I design I want the routing to be described as "deeply unhinged". I think I want the staff at jlc to think they fucked up deeply. I'm kind of obsessive and my routing and placement usually shows that. But perhaps now is the time to try something else.
@sungo I’m always wondering what the worst of the worst is that board houses have processed
@janamarie you know someone drew out various bits on anatomy or other .... art. but yeah there have to be boards where they're just like "let's put a free coupon for this 'how to use kicad' class in the box because damn"