Show HN: Infinite canvas notes in the non-Euclidean Poincaré disk
47 points
by uonr
4 days ago
| 6 comments
| uonr.github.io
| HN
Hi!

This is an infinite canvas note-taking tool where notes are laid out in a non-Euclidean, hyperbolic geometric space. As you drag and navigate through the view, you’ll experience a unique fluid distortion that naturally leverages your brain's spatial memory.

I’ve been obsessed with the concept of space in HCI for years. Many modern UI patterns are essentially workarounds for the lack of screen real estate. While researching zoom-based UIs a while back, I stumbled upon old HCI papers that used the Poincaré disk model of the hyperbolic plane to organize data. It elegantly projects an infinite space into a finite disk, keeping everything contextually visible.

I wanted to build an experimental app around this concept years ago, but the non-Euclidean math was a significant roadblock. Recently, I decided to give it a shot with the help of LLMs. It turns out that LLMs can handle the mathematical heavy lifting quite well, specifically in designing the coordinate systems and optimization algorithms, provided that you guide them with a solid architectural design.

This is still an experimental demo, but I hope it leaves an impression. I’d love to know if you find this paradigm practical for organizing your thoughts.

lioeters
44 minutes ago
[-]
Very interesting user interface concept, and smooth implementation. It's weirdly intuitive, like navigating on the surface of a sphere, or zooming in/out of a kind of spherical perspective where things that are further away are smaller in size. I had difficulty at first reaching some small clustered points, until I got the hang of it.

An idea that came to mind is that maybe some shading would help, with closer areas brighter and more distant areas darker. Or, like another comment said, an option to show/hide a grid.

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OneDeuxTriSeiGo
1 hour ago
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I really like the approach but it'd certainly be nice to be able to use alternate topologies.

Also it'd be nice if there was an underlying grid plotting the metric/distance function to help conceptualize distance/relationships better when you get to the edges.

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gatane
1 hour ago
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You might as well look at HyperRogue, where the whole game happens to be on the same model.
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tapland
2 minutes ago
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[delayed]
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levmiseri
1 hour ago
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Loving the smoothness of this. One concerning thing is overlapping notes – I don't want to be fucking around with trying to move the canvas just right to read a note under another note and there doesn't seem to be any other simple mechanism to resolve this (especially for larger blocks/images). The 'untangle' feature doesn't really solve this.
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isoprophlex
2 hours ago
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It's Greg Egan's notebook!
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sys-ronin
4 days ago
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Nice concept. really unique experience. so smooth.
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