Thanks for the reply, glad to hear confidence in the arduino's capability. I'll stick with it then.
For dimming, I'm referring to individual dimming for each segment, independent of each other, to create various patterns.
The LEDs I am dimming are actually those strips with built-in resistors.
For previous installations I've done, I've used direct port manipulation and straight multiplexing, then the microsecond delay function to vary the duty cycle for each segment. Does that sound possible with 100+ segments and no flicker?
I'm only vaguely familiar with the shift register technique, but very curious about performance capabilities of the arduino using them. I can't have any visible flicker.