Use part of CSS-Sprite as repeated background image

Question

I have a div with a width and height of approximately 300px each. The background of this div should be filled repeatedly with a smaller image of 8px width and 8px height. This smaller image is embedded into a larger sprite image. How can I only use this 8x8 pixel tile to pave the background?

What I've tried so far:

.world {
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  background: url('data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABgAAAAYCAIAAABvFaqvAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAB3RJTUUH4wcYFjsX3EPV0QAAAB1pVFh0Q29tbWVudAAAAAAAQ3JlYXRlZCB3aXRoIEdJTVBkLmUHAAAAxklEQVQ4y+2UsQ3CMBBF/0VImYDKFWNQZB28AwOwQ7KOC8agomKCVJ8ituU7GwkhVxFXWT+nF8nvy0JSRFAMye0wqRghxrheTmV+Wx4A9G7BmlpfAi0lswZ0mj2DsiNjLbBx09lRw1oN+m0OAKB7hIQWvFSM43ZY5V7mI88AhB+KZCiZZSiZ9e/RN6BaP1k6MtY2Ry1rPXv01D1yET3qR2ZF+qXX+zMBDJaSuGP1VMXEV/te9q6/G8hV+h2VI2NtrvZn9uzRGzl9Uzsn2uDrAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC') 0 -16px repeat;
}

<div class="world"></div>

In this example code, the shritesheet has a width and height of 24px each. It contains 9 differently coloured points, each of which has a diameter of 7px.

I want that only one single point is used repeatedly as background for the div. However, in this code, the whole picture is repeated instead beginning at the third row of points.

Note, this exemplary spritesheet is only an example. The actual spritesheet is a little more complicated. Replacing the spritesheet with CSS code is not a solution.

Answer 1

One idea is to consider SVG as background. The trick is to make the image inside the SVG and rely on viewbox to cut the image and show only the needed part then make the whole SVG a pattern for your background.

Simply edit the viewBox to select the pattern you want (x y 8 8 where x,y are equal to [0,8,16])

.box {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  display:inline-block;
}

.one {
  background: url('data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg viewBox="16 0 8 8" width="8" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><image xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABgAAAAYCAIAAABvFaqvAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAB3RJTUUH4wcYFjsX3EPV0QAAAB1pVFh0Q29tbWVudAAAAAAAQ3JlYXRlZCB3aXRoIEdJTVBkLmUHAAAAxklEQVQ4y+2UsQ3CMBBF/0VImYDKFWNQZB28AwOwQ7KOC8agomKCVJ8ituU7GwkhVxFXWT+nF8nvy0JSRFAMye0wqRghxrheTmV+Wx4A9G7BmlpfAi0lswZ0mj2DsiNjLbBx09lRw1oN+m0OAKB7hIQWvFSM43ZY5V7mI88AhB+KZCiZZSiZ9e/RN6BaP1k6MtY2Ry1rPXv01D1yET3qR2ZF+qXX+zMBDJaSuGP1VMXEV/te9q6/G8hV+h2VI2NtrvZn9uzRGzl9Uzsn2uDrAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" x="0" y="0" height="24" width="24" /></svg>')  repeat;
}
.two {
  background: url('data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg viewBox="16 8 8 8" width="8" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><image xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABgAAAAYCAIAAABvFaqvAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAB3RJTUUH4wcYFjsX3EPV0QAAAB1pVFh0Q29tbWVudAAAAAAAQ3JlYXRlZCB3aXRoIEdJTVBkLmUHAAAAxklEQVQ4y+2UsQ3CMBBF/0VImYDKFWNQZB28AwOwQ7KOC8agomKCVJ8ituU7GwkhVxFXWT+nF8nvy0JSRFAMye0wqRghxrheTmV+Wx4A9G7BmlpfAi0lswZ0mj2DsiNjLbBx09lRw1oN+m0OAKB7hIQWvFSM43ZY5V7mI88AhB+KZCiZZSiZ9e/RN6BaP1k6MtY2Ry1rPXv01D1yET3qR2ZF+qXX+zMBDJaSuGP1VMXEV/te9q6/G8hV+h2VI2NtrvZn9uzRGzl9Uzsn2uDrAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" x="0" y="0" height="24" width="24" /></svg>')  repeat;
}

.three {
  background: url('data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg viewBox="8 0 8 8" width="8" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><image xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABgAAAAYCAIAAABvFaqvAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAB3RJTUUH4wcYFjsX3EPV0QAAAB1pVFh0Q29tbWVudAAAAAAAQ3JlYXRlZCB3aXRoIEdJTVBkLmUHAAAAxklEQVQ4y+2UsQ3CMBBF/0VImYDKFWNQZB28AwOwQ7KOC8agomKCVJ8ituU7GwkhVxFXWT+nF8nvy0JSRFAMye0wqRghxrheTmV+Wx4A9G7BmlpfAi0lswZ0mj2DsiNjLbBx09lRw1oN+m0OAKB7hIQWvFSM43ZY5V7mI88AhB+KZCiZZSiZ9e/RN6BaP1k6MtY2Ry1rPXv01D1yET3qR2ZF+qXX+zMBDJaSuGP1VMXEV/te9q6/G8hV+h2VI2NtrvZn9uzRGzl9Uzsn2uDrAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" x="0" y="0" height="24" width="24" /></svg>')  repeat;
}

<div class="box one"></div>

<div class="box two"></div>

<div class="box three"></div>