alt.hn

2/16/2026 at 11:57:01 AM

Show HN: Glitchy camera – a circuit-bent camera simulator in the browser

 https://glitchycam.com

by elayabharath

2/17/2026 at 4:32:37 PM

I just had gpt do a deep research on how to get started with physical circuit bending old digital cameras last night after seeing some fun tiktoks. Anyone know of any quick start resources/kits?

inspiration that I had me digging into this stuff: https://www.tiktok.com/@0xa.mp4

by nickthegreek

2/17/2026 at 1:25:55 PM

Cool project. Love that it's entirely client-side — no uploads, no server processing. More browser tools should work this way.

by flatcoke

2/18/2026 at 11:04:29 AM

HCLK mode needs some knob to control intensity of the effect.

Is it working so slow (like 0.5-1 fps) only for me or is this intended?

Also, you mention video, how to switch to video from photo?

Other than that - that's pretty fun, just like others I love that everything is local on client.

by imcritic

2/17/2026 at 7:25:09 PM

Could've just name it Genius iLook 1321, lol. At least that was the experience for me when I tried to write a Linux driver for it. It was a pre-UVC camera, so that time I did all the glitches natively.

by 0x7cfe

2/17/2026 at 6:26:17 PM

Had great fun with this today, thanks! Makes me think I'd love a compact hackable point'n'click glitch camera that you can load with glitch patches. Like a lomo and a guitar pedal had a baby.

by halfdaft

2/17/2026 at 3:51:30 PM

I triggered the apple reactions and it added something fun: https://s.h4x.club/geuGjJgz

Really really really fun! Thanks for making it. :)

by neom

2/17/2026 at 1:55:26 PM

Nice! It’s the polish and attention to detail that really distinguishes this from something purely generated with AI. Getting the design details right shows the human touch.

by ldad

2/17/2026 at 12:48:51 PM

Great job and thank you, I will be using this. I already love to use my phone camera, it's nice to have a glitch option.

by fallinditch

2/17/2026 at 2:51:53 PM

This is super cool :) How did you do the circuit bending?

Is it emulating the CCD chip somehow, or approximating the effects?

by andai

2/17/2026 at 3:20:16 PM

It is visually approximating the effects to what shorting the pins would do

by elayabharath

2/17/2026 at 10:08:10 AM

It was fun to use glitchycam. Thank you for describing your journey with AI, that is similar what I am experiencing.

by gitowiec

2/17/2026 at 1:45:22 PM

That was exactly my experience with AI coding - useful for ideas and boiler plate code, but not much more.

by naich

2/17/2026 at 1:20:07 PM

I love it. The aesthetics are fantastic. Can this record a video as well?

by harel

2/17/2026 at 2:26:01 PM

Not at the moment, but sounds like a great extension to build!

by elayabharath

2/17/2026 at 3:19:59 PM

Work around would be to screen record

by zoklet-enjoyer

2/17/2026 at 11:31:18 AM

It looks very convincing, and funky. How does the simulation work?

by tgv

2/17/2026 at 12:47:58 PM

I capture each of the frames and process it pixel by pixel[1]. There are 3 inputs to the simulation

1. The gain knob controls the overall intensity of the effect

2. The selected pins / effects are applied to the frame. I describe a couple of the effects below:

For HClock: If the horizontal clock pin is selected, I cut the frame into variable height slices (some are 2-3px, others 8-20px). For each slice, I calculate a random shift (up to ~20% of the frame width) and move the slice to the left or right by the shift value. Then I randomise between keeping the slice normal (70% of the time), black (15%), or a random color band (15%). I then add a magenta tint + darken every other line to simulate a broken TV signal.

For OD: If output drain pin is selected, I compute a random global offset and per line offet jitter. Then for each of the pixels, I move the red to the left and blue to the right by the jitter value.

After the effects are added, I add a global noise, some corrupt lines (on ~30% of the frames, random horizontal lines of magenta/pink/white, shifted/added)

3. Finally a global hue shift is added based on the second knob.

One thing I realised is that Math.random() produced a lot of noise and flow between the frames looked disorienting. So I used a simple integer hash function to produce a more "deterministic" random number and the frames looked more stable/consistent.

[1] I should probably look for optimisations to prevent the device heating up after a few minutes.

by elayabharath

2/17/2026 at 12:38:14 PM

I like that it is based on hardware fundamentals.

by imbusy111

2/17/2026 at 12:31:13 PM

Love it! Bookmarked :-)

by luckys

2/17/2026 at 3:22:38 PM

E: Nevermind, it's my university Fortiguard bullshit.

Anyone else getting certificate issue?

...Certificate issue was here

by emilfihlman