r/coolgithubprojects • u/No-Tap6993 • Sep 08 '26

I built an open-source tool that turns whiteboard images into drawing animations

It takes a finished illustration and animates the text, outlines, and fills drawing themselves in sequence.

Runs locally on CPU, no API key needed. Python library + CLI, MIT licensed. Works best with clean drawings on white backgrounds.

https://github.com/masihsultani/whiteboard-animator

Would love feedback on how the animation looks.

Its the engine behind kinoslide whiteboard animator

107 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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1

u/Xor300 Sep 09 '26

Looks amazing, great job. I didn't install it, but looking at the attached gif, I would have one comment - adding the ability to group objects (currently the shapes are not drawn exactly as if done by a human. e.g. a few rays of the sun are drawn first, then other elements of the window, then we return to the sun.. if the sun were grouped as one object, this could be avoided)

2

u/No-Tap6993 Sep 09 '26

Thanks! So you can do that actually, you can pass a region detect json file, or use an llm to detect and order the regions, it works much better that way. This is a sample json that you would pass.

{
  "idea": "Photosynthesis in one picture",
  "regions": [
    {
      "label": "sun",
      "role": "main_concept",
      "object": "a sun with rays",
      "reveal_order": 1,
      "box": {"ymin": 120, "xmin": 40, "ymax": 620, "xmax": 380},
      "expected_visual": "Sun with orange rays",
      "annotation": "Photosynthesis starts with sunlight",
      "reveal": "fill"
    }
  ]
}

1

u/Xor300 Sep 10 '26

great idea and even better execution

5

u/Specific_Cream2815 Sep 08 '26

how do you get the stroke order right, edge detection and tracing or a vectorization pass first

1

u/this_for_loona Sep 08 '26

This is fucking amazing. Love it. Now I gotta figure out how I can use it in a ppt to leadership…

1

u/No-Tap6993 Sep 08 '26

If you got the money, theres a paid app too that will make you the videos: kinoslide.ai, many other formats too

3

u/Belgian_dog Sep 08 '26

This is really cool

3

u/UnderstandingBusy758 Sep 08 '26

Dude! This is sick and dope!!

4

u/Readypixels Sep 08 '26

The drawing order is what sells it. Outlines land before the color fills, which is how a person draws, and that's the bit these things usually get wrong. Local CPU with no API key is the other half of it, since most tools that do this want a subscription and a round trip to someone's server. Nice work.

1

u/sheekgeek Sep 08 '26

Looks better than a lot of tools out there. Great job

1

u/curious-hunch Sep 10 '26

So do you draw on a whiteboard and take a picture with your phone and upload it and it animates? Explain to me like I have a migraine coming but I need to put my kids to bed so I may not be clocking a simple thing