Show HN: I made a WebGL-based app that traces images using circles https://ift.tt/joJLwN7

Show HN: I made a WebGL-based app that traces images using circles I was fascinated by this [0] and this video [1]. After many struggles, I finally built this app that traces images using circles similar to what these videos had shown. The most challenging part (to me) is to find a way to convert images to vector lines. I had tried Potrace, but its output is not suitable for my use case: too many small elements share the same border. Potrace's goal is to represent the original image faithfully using vector lines. But I want to trace the image edges. After searching and trying some Potrace alternatives in vain, I finally found my keyword. Surprisingly (to me), it lies at the end of the wiki page of the very topic [2]. Then I found a paper [3] that has nice pseudocode and a C implementation. I rewrote the pseudocode in Rust because I wanted to experiment with rustwasm. Honestly, I didn't care much about the math behind it. From then, I could continue to finish the app and show it to the world. This app is also my chance to learn about rustwasm and WebGL. FYI: this app is offline-only; your images never leave your browser [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6sGWTCMz2k [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qgreAUpPwM [2] https://ift.tt/Pro6wkp [3] https://ift.tt/qeYthsw https://ift.tt/ugedaB4 March 2, 2022 at 11:56PM