Show HN: PolyGen App, turn gradients and photos into pretty low poly patterns

I'll be happy to make a desktop version if users want it. Comment here, reply to this tweet (https://twitter.com/polygenapp/status/560846810735206400 ) or let me know in any way if you're interested.

Edit - And as for "why mobile-first", I wanted to make the app casual and approachable. You can take a photo of your teacup and have a cool low poly version of it in an instant. Or generate a pretty colourful wallpaper with one tap. But I'd love to build a desktop version too. Larger screen and finer control over the pointer would give some new possibilities.

Edit 2 - In case somebody didn't notice, you can generate a wallpaper for your desktop from the mobile app. Just choose a desktop option in the "Size" setting.

the app does have built in resolution for macbook retina displays

I've tried d3.js, but decided to go with iron wallaby's delaunay (https://github.com/ironwallaby/delaunay) implementation for performance reasons. The difference was especially visible when working with photos.

$1 may be too much friction at this point. Not something most people consider must-have, but willing to put up with ads to fiddle with.

The ad made me buy the in-app purchase instantly, even before trying (it's placed nearly in the way of the action button).

So in my case, the ad worked as a immediate trigger to pay.

(I would have bought it a 1€ directly in the store, without any hesitation, too. So it made no difference in the end. I'm just a little annoyed that in the future I might have to restore my purchase).

Beautiful. I bet you could get some very nice results if you use a Voronoi diagram using the color gradient as distance function. Even better if you chose points not randomly, but based on the slope of this distance, so they're concentrated in "feature points".

Took a look at what it was doing, but recently it seems to mostly be engaged in ongoing conversations with other bots spitting out nonsense images.

For abstract patterns, points are chosen "randomly" (grid with randomised offsets). For photo-based ones, I'm using JSFeat's YAPE06 (http://inspirit.github.io/jsfeat/#features2dcorner), plus some own customisations. I'm constantly looking for ways to improve generating photo-based patterns; if anyone has some ideas here, I'd be happy to listen.

I've played with genetic algorithms, but without anything practical. Indeed, this might be more appropriate for desktops.

I've experimented with Voronoi too, but the results weren't as pretty. The cells were more rounded; and the low poly style was gone.

I'll be looking into it. In the meantime you might experiment with a different camera (pick "System" in the "Camera & Gallery" option). And many thanks for your comment.

Crop aspect ratio matches the "Size" setting, located one screen earlier; so it's a feature for now. I plan to revisit the crop screen sometime in future and bring more control there. Thanks for your comment!

I'll be looking into it. Similar topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8967391 .

No, it's different. Here I've described how I'm working with photo-based patterns: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8968113 . More technical details on PolyGen's Medium: https://medium.com/@polygenapp .

The "refresh" button randomises as much as it can, but you can prevent a section from being randomised by "locking" it (clicking on the tiny lock icon).

So you can pick a size, lock it and hit "refresh" as much as you wish. I'm glad that you like the app, cheers!

You can support the developer via In-app purchase to get rid of those ads you know.