Is BMP to CSS/HTML conversion possible

Question

It is theoretically possible to have a converter, that scans the color areas of a bitmap image and creates the same looking image, but using the CSS/HTML. CSS could be controlling colours of pixel-small html blocks. The further optimisation could be done by introducing the larger html blocks with similar color maps.

The resulting markup would be very large, but is it theoretically possible to achieve?

The main goal is to be able to e-mail clients a good looking promotional and informational e-mails, bypassing the problem of 99% of the recipients won't click to enable images in an e-mail. With such HTML-encoded images, a sender is sure that the e-mail looks as expected on the client side.

Answer 1

This would generate so much markup and put such a strain on the rendering engine of the recipient's email client that I don't think it would be viable in practice.

Also I wouldn't trust most email clients to render CSS accurately / reliably.

It is probably theoretically viable (in terms of actually generating the HTMl/CSS), although screen size may be an issue with this (for example divs could get pushed onto the next line whereas in the image they were inline).

Answer 2

CSS does not reliably render in email. Bypassing any problems with your theoretical scanner, this is why images are the go-to standard in designed emails.

To see what I mean, look at Campaign Monitor's Guide to CSS support in email.