Recursive Shape Composer

Build simple shapes. Combine them. Transform them. Then use the results to build something much more complex.

Recursive Shape Composer is a small experimental visual tool for creating graphic structures from a handful of basic shapes.

You begin with simple primitives — halves, diagonals, quarter circles and squares — and combine them inside a grid.

Every composition you create becomes a new reusable piece.

That new piece can then be rotated, flipped, inverted, placed inside another composition, transformed again, forked into a new variation, and reused indefinitely.

What starts as four simple shapes can gradually grow into a library of hundreds or thousands of unique structures.

A visual construction system

The idea is simple:

shape → composition → new shape → composition → new shape → ...

There is no predefined collection of finished assets.

Instead, you build your own visual vocabulary while using the tool.

A tiny shape created early in the process might later become one component inside a much larger recursive structure.

You can work very deliberately, or simply experiment and follow interesting accidents.

Made for exploration

Recursive Shape Composer is designed to feel more like playing with pieces on a table than operating a complicated graphics editor.

You can:

• paint pieces directly into composition grids
• create anything from tiny 1×2 arrangements to large 64×64 structures
• rotate, flip and invert pieces
• fork existing pieces without modifying the original
• recursively combine previously created compositions
• search and name your growing library
• mark favorite pieces
• build a small working Palette for frequently used shapes
• zoom deeply into compositions while working
• undo and redo experiments
• use Fill, Clear and different grid presets for fast iteration

The application is designed to remain comfortable even when a project contains thousands of pieces.

Recursive, but not destructive

Saved pieces are treated as reusable building blocks.

When you want to modify an existing piece, you can Fork it.

The original remains unchanged while you create a new variation.

This makes it possible to grow large families of related forms without accidentally destroying earlier work.

The composer also recognizes structurally equivalent results, so obvious transformations such as repeated rotations or flips don't needlessly fill the library with identical pieces.

Export your work

Pieces aren't locked inside the application.

You can export them as:

PNG For immediately usable raster graphics.

SVG For clean resolution-independent vector output.

GLSL Export the selected recursive structure as shader code.

ShaderToy shader Generate a complete shader that can be pasted into ShaderToy and explored as a full-screen procedural graphic.

Project JSON Save the entire project as a portable file and continue working later.

There is no required account and no cloud project format.

Infinite possibilities from very little

The interesting part of Recursive Shape Composer is not the individual primitives.

It is the space that appears when you repeatedly combine them.

A composition can contain another composition.

That composition can contain another one.

And each level can be rotated, reflected, inverted, stretched or rearranged.

This allows surprisingly elaborate geometric languages to emerge from an extremely small starting set.

Patterns can become architectural.

Shapes can become symbols.

Symbols can become textures.

Textures can become landscapes of nested structure.

You can use the tool for deliberate graphic design, procedural-art experiments, shader ideas, pattern generation, abstract symbols, game graphics, or simply to explore what happens when a tiny set of rules is allowed to recursively build upon itself.

Self-contained

Recursive Shape Composer is distributed as a single HTML file.

Open it in a modern desktop browser and start creating.

There are:

• no external libraries
• no external assets
• no fonts to install
• no account
• no server
• no internet connection required while using it

Your project can be saved to a JSON file whenever you want.

Keyboard shortcuts

B — Paint E — Erase I — Pick piece from composition

R — Rotate 90° H — Flip horizontally V — Flip vertically N — Invert

Ctrl+D — Fork selected piece F — Favorite

Ctrl+Z — Undo Ctrl+Shift+Z — Redo

Space + drag — Pan Mouse wheel — Zoom

An experimental creative tool

Recursive Shape Composer grew out of a simple question:

How much visual complexity can emerge if every thing you create is allowed to become a building block for the next thing?

There isn't really a correct way to use it.

Build carefully organized shape families.

Create hundreds of variations.

Make strange symbols.

Design patterns.

Generate shader structures.

Or keep recursively combining pieces until the original four shapes are almost impossible to recognize.

Have fun exploring.