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.

Rotate your phone to see both images side by side.

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…

Playback

Progress

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

Target picture

Tuning

Number of shapes 90

Shape style

Mutation ceiling 0.18

Speed 60 tries/frame

⚡ Smart start

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.