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Hacker News Show HN: I Was Here – Draw on street view, others can find your drawings

global canvas, anyone can leave a mark anywhere and others stumble onto it.

67
Traction Score
52
Discussions
Mar 13, 2026
Launch Date
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Product Positioning & Context

AI Executive Synthesis
global canvas, anyone can leave a mark anywhere and others stumble onto it.
'I Was Here' is a niche consumer-facing application leveraging geospatial data and real-time rendering. Its core value proposition is ephemeral digital graffiti on real-world street views, fostering a unique form of social interaction and persistent digital presence. The use of WebGL2 for 3D projection and Mapillary for imagery indicates a technically sound implementation for its specific purpose. Market implications: This is primarily a novelty or social experiment, not a B2B SaaS product. It lacks clear monetization paths or enterprise utility. While it demonstrates technical capability in geospatial rendering, its market impact is limited to consumer engagement and digital art communities. No direct B2B SaaS implications.
Hey HN, I made a site where you can draw on street-level panoramas. Your drawings persist and other people can see them in real time.Strokes get projected onto the 3D panorama so they wrap around buildings and follow the geometry, not just a flat overlay. Uses WebGL2 for rendering, Mapillary for the street imagery.The idea is for it to become a global canvas, anyone can leave a mark anywhere and others stumble onto it.
street-level panoramas 3D panorama WebGL2 Mapillary street imagery

Community Voice & Feedback

dylanhouli • Mar 13, 2026
That's really neat. I think it would be a lot more popular if there were more locations we could draw on, but I get why it takes time to add new ones.Makes me wonder if something similar to this exists but just more of a "draw all over the globe" type of thing. No street view, just satellite view
koher • Mar 12, 2026
Such a good idea, love it! How does moderation work though, in the case of certain writings or symbols that might need to be censored?
Also would be cool to have more places available, from maybe Google street view?
krishSingaria • Mar 12, 2026
Cool idea !! But a limited number of places which is understandable :)
onebit0fme • Mar 11, 2026
Kinda fun, it'd be more fun to explore any street view
lattrommi • Mar 10, 2026
How do you draw something? I can't seem to do anything but look, I even made an account. I went to look at the nearest locations to me with drawings but they all had nothing. I found the menu on the left side of the screen but that didn't do anything. To draw does it require becoming a paying subscriber?
qezz • Mar 10, 2026
It's not very obvious which places are available for drawing. At first I thought it pulls Google street view, so I just zoomed in to some place I visited recently, but there was nothing.So it turned out the spots on the map are actually the available panoramas, and not just a heatmap of the signatures.Cool idea overall!
doctorhandshake • Mar 10, 2026
It is my belief that a time may come when we can all ‘write’ on, or link information to, any person, place, or thing, based on a melange of semantic anchors, and in that world there will be fewer secrets and more experts.
abrookewood • Mar 10, 2026
A long, long time ago ... there was a browser extension or maybe an iframe, that allowed you to "comment" on public websites. Of course you weren't really commenting on the actual website, just some form of overlay. Anyway, it quickly devolved into lawsuits and rude comments if I recall correctly.
tkocmathla • Mar 10, 2026
Cool idea, but of course the very first image I clicked into was a dick.
FailMore • Mar 10, 2026
Good fun thanks! Found a cute cat in Buenos Aires. It seems you have quite a lot of activity already, is that all from HN in the last two hours or from something else before this?

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