Would love a desktop version of this, to be able to edit bigger pictures. Currently, generating laptop desktop backgrounds is very slow on mobile devices. It's also hard to position the points exactly, and the result cannot be zoomed. It's fine for mobile sizes, but a desktop app would make it much more pleasant.
For abstract patterns, points are chosen "randomly" (grid with randomised offsets). For photo-based ones, I'm using JSFeat's YAPE06 (http://inspirit.github.io/jsfeat/#features2dcorner), plus some own customisations. I'm constantly looking for ways to improve generating photo-based patterns; if anyone has some ideas here, I'd be happy to listen.
I've played with genetic algorithms, but without anything practical. Indeed, this might be more appropriate for desktops.
I've experimented with Voronoi too, but the results weren't as pretty. The cells were more rounded; and the low poly style was gone.
The "refresh" button randomises as much as it can, but you can prevent a section from being randomised by "locking" it (clicking on the tiny lock icon).
So you can pick a size, lock it and hit "refresh" as much as you wish. I'm glad that you like the app, cheers!
I'll be looking into it. In the meantime you might experiment with a different camera (pick "System" in the "Camera & Gallery" option). And many thanks for your comment.
It looks very nice, but it's crashing on my LG G3 as soon as it loads. I see a white background and red/pink banner at the top for about 3 seconds, then it auto-closes. I'll keep it around and watch for auto-updates and hope it's fixed.
Edit - And as for "why mobile-first", I wanted to make the app casual and approachable. You can take a photo of your teacup and have a cool low poly version of it in an instant. Or generate a pretty colourful wallpaper with one tap. But I'd love to build a desktop version too. Larger screen and finer control over the pointer would give some new possibilities.
Edit 2 - In case somebody didn't notice, you can generate a wallpaper for your desktop from the mobile app. Just choose a desktop option in the "Size" setting.
10 years ago, I would never have guessed that I would be finding a new application on my laptop, sending a link to my phone, installing the app on my phone, generating an image, and then emailing myself an attachment back to my laptop to be used as my desktop background.
I've tried d3.js, but decided to go with iron wallaby's delaunay (https://github.com/ironwallaby/delaunay) implementation for performance reasons. The difference was especially visible when working with photos.
