March 6, 2026
Triangles spark big takes
Show HN: Reconstruct any image using primitive shapes, runs in-browser via WASM
Browser toy turns photos into shapes — and the comments are fighting over “why”
TLDR: A web app rebuilds photos with simple shapes entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. Commenters split between loving the artful, hypnotic look and demanding practical features like SVG export, comparing it to Autotrace and Inkscape — a classic clash of cool demo versus useful tool.
The internet just found its new time‑sink: primitive‑playground, a site that morphs any photo into a mosaic of triangles, rectangles, and circles right in your browser using WebAssembly (a tech that runs fast code on the web). It’s a glossy port of fogleman/primitive, and the crowd immediately split into camps. The pragmatists asked, “Okay, but what’s it for?” with one top voice wishing it were a straight PNG‑to‑SVG converter for smaller, editable graphics and animations. Others loved that it runs fully on your device — private, mesmerizing, and just slow enough to watch shapes bloom in real time.
Then came the workflow warriors. One commenter name‑dropped Autotrace and Inkscape, arguing the real test is how you hand off files for editing — a polite way of saying “give us SVG export or bust.” Creatives countered with pure vibes: “Pristine theatrics, man,” while drive‑bys chimed in with an enthusiastic “Neat!” Jokes about “low‑poly Instagram” and “Picasso filter” vibes popped up as users toggled between triangles, circles, and bezier modes, watching images rebuild one shape at a time. It’s the classic Hacker News melodrama: art toy vs. utility tool, with a surprising amount of passion for triangles.
Key Points
- •Primitive-playground is a browser-based WebAssembly port of fogleman/primitive that reconstructs images using geometric shapes.
- •All image processing runs entirely on the user’s device via WASM, accessible at primitive-playground.taiseiue.jp.
- •The algorithm iteratively adds shapes to minimize error between the drawn image and the input, showing progress as shapes accumulate.
- •Users can configure shape count, shape modes, alpha (Combo mode only), input size, output size, and preview interval with listed defaults.
- •The software is released under the MIT License with copyright attributed to Taisei Uemura (2025).