I came across Mark's (?) post from a while back about using a "pretend"

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I came across Mark’s (?) post from a while back about using a “pretend” resolution much higher than your actual number of pixels and antialiasing by only lighting up the “fractional” pixels by a fractional amount. It’s a pretty cool technique.

Am I right in thinking this would work just as well in 2 dimensions (with a pixel matrix) as it does in one (on a linear strip)? For my current project I’m developing a generalised “sprite” animation system for a biggish 2D display (32 x 18) and I was considering using matrix transforms as a basis for movement and rotation—but rotation wouldn’t look so good without antialiasing. This seems like it could fix some of my problems.

Has anyone used matrix maths to do something like this before? Does it work well?

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The 2-D ‘fireworks’ display I did on the Adafruit 8x5 LED matrix uses this kind of anti-aliasing. There’s a Vine video loop here:

I’ve also run the same simulation on a 16x16 display, and it looks good.

The main thing I would say here is that the anti-aliasing looks nice and smooth provided that you’re able to maintain a high frame rate. At low frame rates, it just looks … chunky? I think the thing to do is try it and see if you like the visual look in your particular application.

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Right. I guess I’ll give it a go then—that Vine looks ace!