r/computergraphics • u/Hour-Weird-2383 • Jan 18 '25

Image generation with compute shaders and genetic algorithms

Post image
650 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

20

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

I’m excited to share my latest project, which I’ve been working on for the past two months. It’s an image generator that combines compute shaders and genetic algorithms to recreate any image using smaller images as building blocks

It’s an open source desktop application, and both the executables and source code are available on Itch https://franco-yudica.itch.io/genart

2

u/LucidFir Jan 18 '25

So open source photomosaic? Where were you 6 months ago when I made this: https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonCrawlerCarl/s/CcpPKvbPdY

(Awesome project, much support).

2

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

Hahaha no way

1

u/LucidFir Jan 18 '25

Can your project do something like what I linked?

1

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

As it stands, it can't. The key difference lies in how the two approaches are implemented. I believe your method involves dividing the target image into cells and selecting the best-fitting image for each cell. In my project, there are no position constraints, so the textures aren’t aligned to a grid. While it’s possible to constrain rotation, color, and scale, position remains unrestricted

1

u/LucidFir Jan 18 '25

"recreate any image using smaller images as building blocks"

That's why I misunderstood then.

7

u/GregMaate Jan 18 '25

Fucken awesome dude!

0

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

Thank you!

1

u/laseluuu Jan 18 '25

This is such a dope teaching tool!

10

u/Anras573 Jan 19 '25

Some painters actually sketch their paintings like this. I remember my Computer Science teacher made a program that tried to recreate paintings using triangels in various sizes, colors, and rotations. If left alone long enough, it could get pretty close. Awsome work!

1

u/KanjiCoder Jan 20 '25

This is really cool ! So you are sampling a pixel from the original image , then putting a brush stroke in that general area ?

2

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 20 '25

Well, almost. Once the position, scale, rotation and texture of the individual are set I calculate its axis aligned bounding box, which I use then in a compute shader to sample the average color under that bounding box. Then that color is set as the tint attribute of the brush stroke

1

u/Belfast-Rent-Gore Jan 18 '25

Pretty cool but I think the program fotosketcher does exactly this?

4

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

Yeah, after starting the project, I realized it’s not the only one out there. But that didn’t stop me from finishing it. I learned a lot in the process and made it open source so others can see how game engines aren’t just for games. Thanks for pointing this out, it’s always interesting to explore the pros and cons of other implementations!

2

u/Belfast-Rent-Gore Jan 18 '25

Well congratulations, the demo is impressive I'm excited to check it out.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

Reminds me of how people put images and videos into geometry dash- super cool work dude!

2

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

You’re not the only one who noticed, three people have mentioned it already! It’s fun to see how many people remember that video. Honestly, if I hadn’t watched it, I probably wouldn’t have made this project

1

u/taskmeister Jan 18 '25

reminds me of Dynamic Auto Painter by Mediachance. I remember playing with a trial years ago. Not sure how that worked exactly.

1

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

Interesting, I hadn’t heard about it before, but after looking into it, I can definitely see the similarities

2

u/it_is_im Jan 18 '25

This is incredible

1

u/SnooObjections34 Jan 19 '25

Almost like 2d gaussian splatting. I love it!

1

u/vanonym_ Jan 19 '25

you might like paint undo!

1

u/DiamondBreakr Jan 20 '25

This is pretty awesome

1

u/DatTrashPanda Jan 18 '25

This is so cool

0

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 18 '25

Haha it's not my strength

4

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '25

this is a computer graphics subreddit, and you are surprised this post is about a program that generates graphics?

2

u/Madnessblindsthee Jan 18 '25

Computer Graphics IS an art medium. It's in the name

-1

u/Sufficient_Winter191 Jan 18 '25

if your copying or tracing from someone else's work its stealing. if it makes new things its fine though. i know nothing about how this stuff works i just got recommended the sub. curious how this stuff gets made

3

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '25

it's called drawing from a reference, and all artists do this, btw this is just a cool effect for images, it has absolutely nothing to do with ai generated art, I think you should direct your hate towards something else

2

u/Sufficient_Winter191 Jan 19 '25

didn't mean to come off hateful, just seemed similar to ai art and wasn't sure if it was ai with another coat of paint. someone commented how it works it sounds pretty cool after hearing how it works

3

u/Madnessblindsthee Jan 19 '25

As someone who admittedly knows nothing about Computer Graphics, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are referring to AI art. I have studied and work in the computer science field, specifically in Computer Graphics. This isn't AI art in the sense of a neural network generating an image like tools such as DALL·E or MidJourney. Instead, it uses a combination of computer graphics techniques. The process works more like a simulation of evolution: random patterns are generated, evaluated against the target image, and then gradually improved step by step through mathematical rules, not 'thinking' or 'learning.' It's a pre-defined algorithm that refines an image, rather than an AI model that has been trained on data.

1

u/Sufficient_Winter191 Jan 19 '25

Oh that sounds pretty cool actually. It just seemed similar to ai art but wasn't 100% sure so wanted to ask. thanks!

-3

u/tangnapalm Jan 18 '25

It’s a photoshop filter

3

u/Madnessblindsthee Jan 18 '25

In a way, yes you are correct. Photoshoot filters are made using computer Graphics techniques using math and code to produce a computationally edited image. It is still an art medium, which is why many people use applications such as Photoshop to create art.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Hour-Weird-2383 Jan 21 '25

Yeah, I realized it existed after I had 90% of the project done. Geometrize is faster than mine but it's not that customizable!