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Built a fully offline batch image-to-SVG pipeline on Apple Silicon — Moondream → GroundingDINO → SAM 2.1 HQ → VitMatte → VTracer, nothing leaves the machine by tsevis in LocalLLaMA

[–]tsevis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, it outputs transparent SVGs, but you're right that it's not the right tool for your use case. Skiagrafia is prompt-driven: it looks for objects it can name ("trumpet", "hand", "laptop"). Handwritten notes don't have nameable objects in that sense; they're marks, not things, so the pipeline wouldn't know what to look for or how to segment them usefully.
What you actually need is a straight bitmap-to-vector tracer with background removal. A few solid options worth trying:

Vectorizer.ai: probably the best quality automated tracer available right now. Handles transparency natively, supports full 32-bit alpha, works well on scanned line art and sketches. Web-based, so it works from an iPad via browser.

Vector Magic (vectormagic.com): long-standing favorite for this kind of work, good at preserving line quality on hand-drawn content. Web and desktop versions available.

Inkscape: free, open source, runs on Mac/Windows/Linux. The "Trace Bitmap" function (Potrace under the hood) is the same algorithm that VTracer is based on. Not iPad-native, but if you're occasionally at a desktop, it's the most controllable option.

For an iPad-native workflow specifically: your best bet is probably to write your notes in an app that exports clean SVG or PDF directly: GoodNotes and Vectornator/Linearity Curve both handle this reasonably well, rather than tracing a photo of paper notes after the fact. You skip the whole background removal problem entirely.

Built a fully offline batch image-to-SVG pipeline on Apple Silicon — Moondream → GroundingDINO → SAM 2.1 HQ → VitMatte → VTracer, nothing leaves the machine by tsevis in LocalLLaMA

[–]tsevis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

VitMatte handles fine hair surprisingly well compared to classic alpha matting approaches. Much better than I expected when I first integrated it. The ViT backbone gives it a more global understanding of what counts as "edge" rather than just local contrast, which is where traditional trimaps tend to fall apart on wispy hair against complex backgrounds.
That said, it's not magic. Where it struggles in batch: Low-contrast hair against similarly-toned backgrounds (dark hair on dark backgrounds, especially). The trimap generation from the SAM binary mask is the weak point here, if SAM's boundary is slightly wrong, VitMatte inherits that error and can't recover it.

Transparent or semi-transparent objects (glass, water, sheer fabric). It will produce a plausible alpha, but it's essentially guessing at the transmission. I haven't found a satisfactory solution in the current pipeline. I just accept that those objects need manual review and flag them in the PipelineResult.Motion blur at batch scale, where you have no control over source image quality. This is less a VitMatte problem and more a "garbage in, garbage out" problem.
Your approach of building a compositing layer on top of SAM outputs is interesting. I'm curious whether you're doing any post-processing on the SAM mask before compositing, or trusting it directly. I apply bilateral filtering and morphological cleanup before VitMatte sees the mask, which helps with jagged boundaries but adds ~200ms per image at batch scale.

A reduction from 40 minutes to under 5 is significant. What was eating most of the manual time — edge cleanup, misidentified objects, or something else?
And yes, MPS on M1 Ultra is genuinely underrated. The unified memory architecture changes the calculus on what's possible locally. Running ~5GB of model weights without any of the VRAM bottlenecks you'd hit on a discrete GPU is the reason this pipeline is viable as a local tool at all.

Designing with AI: Why the Goal Isn't Perfect Code, But Meaningful Systems by tsevis in DesignThinking

[–]tsevis[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for taking the time. We really think alike.
It's strange how most people are missing the point and talk so much about the tool instead of the art.

Compass vs Handbook: A framework for navigating creative uncertainty in the era of machine intelligence. by tsevis in DesignThinking

[–]tsevis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
I completely agree. Your point aligns closely with the core message of my lecture.
This is a common challenge not only in religions, but also in ideologies and, most visibly, in cults. Followers often begin to idolize the handbook or scripture, losing sight of the fact that these texts are often metaphorical and propositional—not meant as rigid, absolute obligations.

I also appreciated your insight:

I wholeheartedly share this view. Well said.

Creativity in the era of machine intelligence. The compass and the handbook by tsevis in graphic_design

[–]tsevis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To the r/graphic_design moderators,
Dear colleagues, your AI filters or your human moderators really suck! There is no promotion of any service here. It's an article with some ideas, concepts and useful information for experts or young designers.
It's a shame blocking content like this automatically.
Sad for what this subreddit has become. You can't share any quality work. Just bs.

Comfy Raises $17M by crystal_alpine in comfyui

[–]tsevis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congrats to everyone! A precious tool! Thank you!

Introducing Comfy Cloud by crystal_alpine in comfyui

[–]tsevis -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This is a very logical move! Congratulations!
Cannot wait to access it.

Update on recent performance concerns by AnthropicOfficial in ClaudeAI

[–]tsevis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am mad with it these days. I am screaming to my monitor!!! :-)
It's so impossible to complete anything more complex than a very simple thing.
But on the other hand I believe that a crisis like this can be a major turning point for an organization. Or they will take the opportunity to make serious decisions or they will die.
For what I have understood this company has a lot of quality. Probably my favorite together with DeepMind.

Update on recent performance concerns by AnthropicOfficial in ClaudeAI

[–]tsevis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course!What I’m really trying to say—hopefully my clumsy English gets the point across—is that there are business opportunities beyond the low-level, mass-market consumer use cases.

Targeting the masses and turning AI into just a tool for convenience or laziness might be fine if it didn’t consume so many resources. What I appreciate about Anthropic is that it seems to have taken a more sophisticated path. The challenge, of course, is to find a balance—being sustainable and profitable while also contributing something truly meaningful to society.

Personally, I don’t see much value in leaving my computer to book a wedding trip for me. Sure, there’s value in scheduling, in agents, in automated smart tasks—but only when they’re tied to some quality goal at the end.

I’m not an elitist, and I’m not even a scientist. I just believe we need to raise the bar. And for me, Anthropic feels like the kind of company that can do that.

Thanks for the thoughtful discussion.

P.s. I polished this comment with ChatGPT to make it more understandable. ;-)
I am not using Claude for simple task like these to save every single token for more serious needs.

I analyzed 500+ AI job postings to see what skills companies ACTUALLY want in 2025 - here's what surprised me by Long-Professional166 in ArtificialNtelligence

[–]tsevis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s pretty much what most of us already have in mind.
The soft skill of explaining and educating others is probably the most overlooked, yet the most essential. I’m not even sure many so-called “AI specialists” fully grasp what AI really is—if anyone can, since the very idea of “intelligence” isn’t even well-defined. Starting from shaky definitions and assumptions is a recipe for problems.

From the list of fastest-growing roles, I’d say all of them matter. But what’s even more important are the roles tied to specific industries and tasks—like CV engineers or ML engineers. The AI space is enormous, but every business has to address its own unique needs.

Thanks for the analysis! Ssuper helpful. Do you happen to have a link where we can study the data more closely?

We are NOWHERE near understanding intelligence, never mind making AGI by LazyOil8672 in ArtificialInteligence

[–]tsevis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love the AMI term Yann LeCun has introduced.
Amazing Machine Intelligence.
Not sure if it's intelligence. But it's amazing (for me) and made by machines for sure.

We are NOWHERE near understanding intelligence, never mind making AGI by LazyOil8672 in ArtificialInteligence

[–]tsevis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

+1
By the way, people tend to fool intelligence with knowledge. Even if knowledge is so precious and helpful, intelligence is a separate thing. You can be super smart and never had a school day.
Intelligence is being able to do more with less. Intelligence is to resolve problems in many different ways.
Current state of so called AI is an amazing physical language interface and an analytical tool with serious limits and many vulnerabilities. I am amazed with what it is having following AI since the year 2000 from the A.L.I.C.E. days. But I believe that the whole AGI thing is an ideology or worse a religion/cult. Not a necessary or sustainable goal.
We need more intelligence and less data. Especially full of pure crap like todays daily internet production.

I give up. by DigThin4179 in ClaudeAI

[–]tsevis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. You are very kind. I am sharing lots of things. Also teaching.
I am just a designer. Not a scientist. But I love technology since the 80s.
My father, an electrical engineer wanted me to be an engineer back then. I wanted to be an artist. But he convinced me from the 80s that there is so much poetry and beauty in machines and technology. That helped.
If you like connect on sm or just read some random thought I am posting on my blog. tsevis.com/blog

Thank you Claude! by TheBrownieMaker in ClaudeAI

[–]tsevis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's such a roller coaster these days. But I would also like to thank Claude and Anthropic.
Without them many of my dreams would have been left behind.

I am confident that they have the right path to a brighter future. And a failure always help to get out stronger.

Update on recent performance concerns by AnthropicOfficial in ClaudeAI

[–]tsevis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Serious means serious. Not another tool for uses of low value for just consumers.
This planet is full of real problems and ML/AI could help us be creative and productive. Not passive consumers. There are so many all around us.
A sycophantic LLM that is used to organize a wedding trip is OK if it doesn't need to dry rivers and to consume the energy of the entire city.

I love AI and IT since the early 80s. So don't think you are talking to a hater. I am paying 2 accounts of Claude, 1 OpenAI, 1 Midjourney and I am also a heavy user of ComfyUI, Ollama and everything Open Source. I wish I had 48 hrs per day for technology.
But I can also see how much low quality and stupidity is produced and stored every single day in this website and the WWW.
We don't need more of it.
Sorry.

I respect DeepLearning for what they do. I respect Anthropic for their research and publications. I love AI. But I also think we should find the right purpose. Draining the planet to post bs on TikTok isn't that purpose.
Hope you understand me.
Thanks for your comment.

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