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pointerpointer.com's use of voronoi, canvas, and javascript

Paul Irish · 40.3K views · 2012-06-11 · 3:45

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Overview

Paul Irish explains how pointerpointer.com works. It uses a hidden canvas of colored Voronoi regions to look up which photo matches the cursor position.

On Hacker News

HN links it as the author's own breakdown of Pointer Pointer's inner workings.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2012–2025

Topics

Web developmentCreative coding & generative artComputer graphics & rendering
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voronoihtml canvasjavascriptpointer pointer

What people said

Conlectus · 2020-12 · Recommendation

Here's a picture of all the different regions: [LINK] For those curious if how it works, Paul Irish did a breakdown of it quite a while ago: [VIDEO] TL:DW - Vornoi Diagrams[1] and manual tagging, no machine learning needed. [1] [LINK]

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petercooper · 2025-10 · Reference

Paul Irish explained the basics of how it works here: [VIDEO] I wonder if you could create something similar nowadays using generative AI but with the finger in a very specific location without pregenerating thousands of images.

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paulirish · 2012-06 · Reference

I made a quick video explaining how the webapp works: [VIDEO] Essentially, using the gridPositions.json to populate a Voronoi Grid (toggle display of the <canvas> in your browser). Then your cursor position is used against the grid to find which shape encloses it which maps back to the source JPEG which is then displayed.

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Sources

Video by Paul Irish, played through YouTube.

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