Documentation

Overview

Realness is a camera-first app that turns photos into layered SVG posters and groups them with statements into thoughts. It all happens on your device. Sign in if you want to sync across devices.

Quick start

Add Realness to your home screen. The camera is the fastest way in - photograph what's in front of you and get a vector poster back.

  1. Open Thoughts, tap the camera, and take a picture.
  2. Realness traces it into a vector poster with eighteen gradients to pull color from.
  3. Write statements alongside your posters to build a thought.
  4. Sign in with your phone number to sync across devices and show up in the phonebook.

Posters export as SVG, PNG, PSD, video, or GLB - and drop into Figma, Affinity, Procreate, Adobe, and Blender workflows.

Interface

The action bar and keyboard shortcuts drive the app.

Pages: Thoughts (/), about, documentation, pricing, phonebook, relations, account, sign-on.

Action bar:

  • Add - paste or pick images (multiple files on desktop).
  • 3D - toggle the 3D viewer.
  • Camera - take a photo.
  • Animation - toggle poster animation.
  • Settings - open preferences.

Paste an image anywhere to queue a poster. Toggle the action bar with M.

Thoughts

A thought pairs posters with statements in time. You have 13 minutes to keep adding to one after you start it. Text-only thoughts stand bare on the feed; mixed with posters they read like captions.

Statements written within 13 minutes of a poster attach to it as an overlay caption — you'll see a teal border on the poster when this happens. Those statements don't appear separately in the feed.

Posters

Thoughts and profiles show posters in chronological days. Create them from the action bar, camera, or paste.

Anatomy of a poster

Each poster is a layered SVG.

Shadow layers (lightest to boldest): Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Background (optional fill).

Also: Gradients (eighteen colors from your photo), Stroke (outlines along shadow paths), Mosaic (transparent cutouts from photo contrast).

Mosaic layers (coarsest to finest): Boulders, Rocks, Gravel, Sand, Sediment. Toggle all with g, individual layers with uppercase keys (see Shortcuts).

Interactive features

  • Animation - GPU color transitions. a toggle, A cycle speed.
  • Drama - front and back light bars. d toggle, D cycle combination.
  • Touch and hover - mosaic at half opacity. Hover brightens a layer; press and hold isolates one.
  • Fit or fill - tap to switch meet (inside frame) and slice (fill frame). Long-press on touch.
  • Pan - drag portrait posters within the frame.
  • Aspect ratio - r cycles auto, 1:1, 1.618:1, 16:9, 2.35:1, 2.76:1.
  • Slice alignment - ↑ / ↓ nudge the crop in slice mode.
  • 3D view - q or action bar; tune in settings.
  • Storytelling - horizontal feed scroll. w.
  • Mask pen - edit mosaic selection on your own posters.

Vector work runs in web workers. View state persists locally. Exports match what you see.

Download and export

Each poster has a download menu. A blue sweep border means an export is running. Hidden layers are excluded.

  • SVG - current visible state, any size. Set adobe colors for HEX gradient stops in Adobe tools.
  • PNG - full poster at 3840px wide, small Realness watermark.
  • PNG layers - one file per layer (+ on PNG). Good for compositing.
  • PSD - Shadows (Background, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold), Stroke, Mosaic (Sediment through Boulders). 3840px desktop, 1920px iOS Safari.
  • Video - animated .mov, 24fps, 1080px short side.
  • GLB - 3D model for Blender and similar tools.

How posters are made

Computer vision, not machine learning:

Statements

Text written in the feed, grouped by day. Can be multiple lines. Tap any statement to edit it in place. URLs are written as text — they aren't turned into links. Works offline without sign-in; syncs once you sign in.

Profile

A profile (/<phone-number>) shows avatar, posters, and statements by day. Download their posters. Cached offline; visits are not tracked.

Sign-on

Sign in with your phone number and a display name. You appear in the phonebook at that number. Realness is invisible to search engines — no tracking, no advertising. The server handles auth and storage only; your data lives on your device.

Account

Account (sign-in required):

  • Sign off - sign out.
  • Name - display name.
  • Sponsorship - history and option to sponsor (see Pricing).

Settings

Gear in the action bar or ,. Controls poster look and export.

  • Mosaic - mosaic cutouts.
  • Shadow - shadow layers and gradients.
  • Stroke - shadow outlines.
  • Drama - dynamic lighting.
  • Export to folder - sync exports to a folder on your device.

With 3D view on: mosaic and shadow spread/opacity, camera tilt, haze, drift. Desktop also shows live shortcut reference. Stored locally.

Install

Progressive Web App - install from the browser (Chrome/Edge address bar, Firefox "Install App", Safari "Add to Dock"). Offline-capable, full keyboard shortcuts, desktop GPU.

Sync indicator

Border around the app:

  • Blue sweep - syncing, exporting, processing, or refreshing.
  • Yellow - offline; editing paused.
  • None - online and idle.

Shortcuts

Desktop only. ? opens this documentation.

0 - Thoughts

1 - Phonebook

2 - About

View

i - Info (FPS and viewport)

w - Storytelling (side-scroll) view

r - Cycle aspect ratio (Shift+r reverses)

p - Presentation (fullscreen)

M - Show/hide the action bar

h - Show/hide the footer

q - 3D view

Poster look

a - Animation  ·  A - Cycle animation speed

d - Drama  ·  D - Cycle drama lights

s - Stroke

f - Shadow

g - Mosaic

Shadow layers

z - Bold

x - Medium

c - Regular

v - Light

b - Background

Mosaic layers

Z - Boulders

X - Rocks

C - Gravel

V - Sand

B - Sediment

Focused poster

↑ - Slice alignment up

↓ - Slice alignment down

System

, - Open settings

. - Open account

? - Show documentation

T - Clear sync time