🎨 What am I watching?

The picture on the right is built from a few dozen colored glass shapes stacked on top of each other. It starts as random junk.

The computer keeps making tiny random tweaks — nudge a corner, change a color — and only keeps a change if it makes the picture look MORE like the target on the left. Bad tweaks are thrown away.

Over thousands of these tiny improvements, random shapes slowly evolve into a copy of the image. That's evolution as an artist — and it's why the Match % only ever goes up.

Target the picture we're copying

Evolving copy random shapes, refining toward the target

The right image is painted from semi-transparent shapes. Watch the noise sharpen into the target.

🎨 Evolve a Picture

Random shapes evolve into a copy of an image.

🎨 Starting from random shapes…

Match 0.0% how closely the evolving copy resembles the target (climbs toward 100%)

Match % over time

Attempts 0 random tweaks tried so far

Improvements 0 tweaks that were kept because they helped

Shapes 0 glass shapes currently in the picture

Speed 0/s tweaks tried per second right now

Target picture

Number of shapes 90

Shape style

Mutation ceiling 0.18

Speed 60 tries/frame

How it works

The picture's "genome" is a list of colored, semi-transparent polygons. Each attempt copies the current best, makes one small random change, and redraws it. If the new version matches the target better, it becomes the new best; otherwise it's discarded.

Because only improvements are kept, the Match % can never go down. Fitness is measured on a small downscaled copy for speed, then the winner is painted large on the right.