[HN Gopher] Trianglify.io - Low Poly Pattern Generator
___________________________________________________________________
Trianglify.io - Low Poly Pattern Generator
Author : sysadm1n
Score : 210 points
Date : 2022-09-18 14:21 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (trianglify.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (trianglify.io)
| qrohlf wrote:
| One thing that folks may find interesting about this project on a
| technical level is that it's fully stateless including the
| backend that's responsible for interacting with Stripe Checkout,
| processing payments, and sending emails with receipts and links
| to re-download patterns.
|
| The thing that makes that possible is that I'm using a seedable
| PRNG for the pattern generation and have a custom serialization
| format for all of the possible pattern parameters. This means
| that any pattern can be represented by a single short string like
| `w:1440!h:900!x:random!v:0.63!c:0.06!s:9gjk5s!f:sp!i:0.30` and
| reproduced with 100% accuracy.
|
| That means instead of a database, I can just store the entire
| purchased pattern directly within the Stripe transaction within
| the `client_id` field using this compressed representation. Then
| it's just a matter of reading it back from the Stripe API when I
| get the "purchase completed" webhooks in order to build the
| correct attachments and send the customer their assets via email.
| This keeps my own service totally stateless & database-free, and
| also has the very nice property of allowing me to quickly and
| easily access the pattern by copy-pasting the client-id from the
| Stripe dashboard if I ever need to grab it for customer service
| reasons!
| savolai wrote:
| It says you can use the library on your website if the website
| is open source. When does a WordPress website qualify as open
| source, or not? Or is the talk about gplv3 just trying to scare
| people because it's unclear to them what this requirement
| actually means?
|
| Not criticizing your business model, just curious. Thanks for
| the tool, liked the aesthetics.
| mr-karan wrote:
| Quite a cool approach. Although only one downside I see here is
| that you're just relying on Stripe to let you access order
| history? What if they don't let you access this data via APIs
| for data older than a certain time period? Or is that not much
| of a concern here?
| josiahpeters wrote:
| I know that people are beating you up over the price, but this
| is great.
|
| 1. Someone could generate the same asset for themselves using
| your open source library. Which is great for someone who has
| time over budget.
|
| 2. You are providing value in your packaging of that time
| savings.
|
| 3. You created a very cheap way to offer this using server less
| and stateless. Props to you for making something that is
| financially sustainable for a long time.
|
| Number 3 is the most interesting of the above. That's no easy
| feat and I applaud you for it.
| worldmerge wrote:
| That's so cool!!!
| swiftcoder wrote:
| It's pretty, but there is an odd singularity when you scrub
| between zero and non-zero variance. Is zero variance handled as a
| special-case for some reason?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| zero variance is all copies of the same triangle tessellated
| together. By definition a non-zero variance has to introduce
| change in at least 1 triangle and in doing so has to
| recalculate all connected triangles. It's hard to imagine how
| there couldn't be a strange blip when transitioning from zero
| to non-zero.
| [deleted]
| valtism wrote:
| You can get this for free, along with a bunch of other cool
| designs on https://coolbackgrounds.io/
| rcarmo wrote:
| I used this to generate some two dozen wallpapers of various
| color schemes that were on my desktops for _years_ (I still use
| them on iPhone and iPad). Loved it, and also loved the result
| since they were varied and interesting to look at without being
| distracting.
|
| I now have a set of scripts that downloads the Bing wallpaper of
| the day for Mac and Linux, and I like those as well, but
| sometimes miss the gradients and ambiance these generated since
| (in Windows at least) extrapolating the dominant color in those
| photos for desktop theme highlights mostly results in... brown.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Nice, would like to see this type of interface for other
| generative art algos.
| [deleted]
| KMnO4 wrote:
| > Can I use the Trianglify javascript library on my website?
|
| > Yes, as long as your website is open-source and complies with
| the terms of the GNU General Public License v3. If you're
| interested in purchasing a commercial license for the Trianglify
| javascript library, please get in touch.
|
| Bleh. This along with the $8 export fee makes me really tempted
| to spend the 2 hours building out a similar library and webpage
| and release it as MIT.
| daxuak wrote:
| Why does strip ask for canvas access in the demo? How is that
| related?
| mywacaday wrote:
| I found that really visually pleasing, will be using it to make a
| few screen savers. Great job!
| [deleted]
| swayvil wrote:
| Nice. Passably pretty and tasteful. This could be useful. Do you
| have a javascript random-generator version that I can plug into
| my page?
| qrohlf wrote:
| Author here - interesting to see this pop up on HN again!
|
| Since there are a lot of questions in the comments that might be
| answered by prior writing/discussions, here are a couple relevant
| links:
|
| 0. Trianglify.io is a GUI for my GPL-licensed node library of the
| same name, which is available for use in OSS projects for free:
| https://qrohlf.com/trianglify/
|
| 1. Trianglify (the library) first became popular because of an HN
| post eight years ago. Discussion here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7578002
|
| 2. I've written a short Medium article on why Trianglify.io
| exists and how I arrived at the current freemium/micropayments
| model for monetizing it: https://medium.com/@qrohlf/i-sell-
| triangles-on-the-internet-...
| CompuIves wrote:
| Thank you for creating this! I remember using this for the
| header of my portfolio website before I got my first job. Happy
| to see that it's still active, I hope that the monetization
| model is working out well!
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _micropayments_
|
| I don't think it's reasonable to call $8 micropayments. Now if
| you were selling the individual triangles _pro rata_ ...
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Without looking at the code, just playing with the sliders,
| this is just:
|
| - Generate points on a grid,
|
| - perturb each one by a random (variance-scaled) vector,
|
| - compute Delaunay triangulation,
|
| - color each triangle by some function (pretty clear for
| Gradient, the others I can't intuit)
|
| ...right?
|
| Not meant to diminish the work (it's clean and simple, nice
| job!), just wondering how close I got.
| martin_a wrote:
| How much does it pay you monthly, if I may ask?
| textninja wrote:
| I am dying to know the answer to this. I can't get over the
| fact people are paying $8 for downloads of randomized
| triangles, but then again NFTs are a thing so I shouldn't be
| too surprised.
| martin_a wrote:
| Honestly, I'd be totally cool if it pays some bills because
| it fixes somebodies problem. I just wonder if projects this
| small can really be monetized.
| artemonster wrote:
| Wait, no subscription and credit card required?
| cedilla wrote:
| Not even an Enterprise variant for unlocking LDAP/SSO
| integration.
| crisbal_ wrote:
| Well, apparently there is. Just press export and you will find
| it costs 8$.
| cedilla wrote:
| I didn't even notice, as you can just right-click and
| download. It's also not mentioned in the FAQ, which just
| states that "You own the copyright to any patterns produced
| using this tool, just like you'd own the copyright to a
| design you made using Photoshop or Illustrator."
|
| Soo... a hybrid of donation button and tax on people who
| don't know about right-click - save image?
| qrohlf wrote:
| Basically, yes! Since the fundamental functionality is
| powered by my (free) open-source library, trianglify.io is
| a time-saving tool for those who want a quick GUI instead
| of having to download and learn the npm library.
|
| It's part of a series of experiments that I've run on
| monetizing open source, which you can read about in the
| article I wrote a while back here:
| https://medium.com/@qrohlf/i-sell-triangles-on-the-
| internet-...
|
| That said, right-click > save as image is supposed to be
| disabled on that particular DOM element, but I'm guessing
| you probably have an extension or user-script that re-
| enables it. Which is fine, you're probably not the target
| audience for this! Trianglify.io is mostly used by
| designers working on professional projects for whom $8 to
| save 20-30min of tedious work in Illustrator is a very good
| value proposition.
| LukeShu wrote:
| > That said, right-click > save as image is supposed to
| be disabled on that particular DOM element, but I'm
| guessing you probably have an extension or user-script
| that re-enables it.
|
| FYI, even without an extension, you can bypass it being
| disabled by holding down the shift key while right-
| clicking (at least in Firefox).
| dahart wrote:
| > right-click > save as image is supposed to be disabled
| on that particular DOM element
|
| Having done some of my own monetizing experiments, I was
| surprised by how often people don't make any attempts to
| circumvent what is written on the site. Text appeared to
| be much stronger than efforts to prevent free service.
|
| Still, it's kinda funny to me if this works well enough
| to make any sales. It's not possible to prevent download
| of images you serve, there are several ways to save them
| in all the major browsers without any plugins. Are you
| serving the full size image?Intentionally?
| cedilla wrote:
| Well, I know what my designer colleagues pay for stock
| backgrounds, so I agree that it's more than fair.
| Wouldn't even raise an eyebrow.
|
| You're right, I do have an extension against common
| annoyances. Totally forgot about it since I usually
| screenshot anyways.
| Retr0id wrote:
| The Firefox "Allow Right-Click" addon remedies this
| situation: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/re-
| enable-rig...
| edg-l wrote:
| you don't need an extension, just press shift and right
| click
| lf-non wrote:
| And if you want an svg, you can trace the bitmap with
| inkscape.
| mrstone wrote:
| Looks nice, but $8 for a PNG? Come on.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Solution: don't buy it
| tarr11 wrote:
| Are you upset by the profit margin, or something else?
| mrstone wrote:
| I don't assess the value of an image of triangles to be $8.
| That's all.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Kandinsky is in shambles
| https://www.tallengestore.com/products/figurines-at-the-
| grea...
| nomel wrote:
| For a quick sanity check, $12 is the cost of most 4K,
| slightly older, full length, feature films.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| The code is open source here so im not sure why the export
| costs $ https://github.com/qrohlf/trianglify
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| Hn: Open source devs, monetize your work while keeping it
| open and free!
|
| OP: does that
|
| Hn: no not like that
| duxup wrote:
| IMO the price gets the attention.
| mrstone wrote:
| If it was like, $1 or something, I would be willing to buy
| it. $8 is entirely too much.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What's your hourly rate as a designer, and how many
| minutes would it take to put together all the triangles
| in Illustrator?
|
| If you make more than $16/hr and it would take you 30
| minutes to put this together triangle-by-triangle, color-
| swatch-by-color-swatch, then $8 is not too much, correct?
| cinntaile wrote:
| Not just that... If he has to do any kind of customer
| support it rapidly becomes a money losing business at $1.
| Looks like it wasn't worth it at $4 either.
| dharma1 wrote:
| Inflation
| cedilla wrote:
| It's less than a stock background costs, and less than
| the work would cost to recreate it yourself.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| If it were $1, you still wouldn't buy it.
|
| The customers who are this price sensitive are always the
| worst. They're the most needy, and the most likely to
| churn.
|
| When a contract is $50,000 all you ever hear from the
| client is "Invoice paid. Thanks!".
| idiotsecant wrote:
| This is exactly the kind of sales model that helps everyone,
| though. If this frustrates you then you aren't thinking about
| it hard enough. The author offers the library that generates
| these images for _free_ with a GPL license. If you are
| interested in the end product but don 't want to / can't spend
| 8 dollars you can build it yourself easily thanks to the work
| the author did and released for _free_. If you 'd rather not
| break out the IDE or can't then you can give the author a small
| amount of money to do it for you. Everyone wins. There are no
| losers in this situation.
| diimdeep wrote:
| It is really amazing what people take money for.
| morphicpro wrote:
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLCanvasE...
| Nekorosu wrote:
| I felt a bit of irritation regarding the price at first, but
| after giving it a second thought and understanding it was based
| on OS lib, got okay with it. It sounds like a bold statement:
| "Learn to program or pay." Like it!
| mavu wrote:
| This is very pretty!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| About 20 years ago when I got started with GIS in 9th grade, my
| geography teacher told me about Color Brewer, this website to
| help pick colour palettes for maps. I noticed that the last name
| of one author was "Brewer."
|
| Your app has "colour brewer" as a label.
|
| Is this a coincidence? Did Brewer coin the name all those years
| ago? Or does "colour brewer" predate or exist separately from
| that website, such as, "brewing up some colours" or something?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-18 23:00 UTC)