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Show HN: Vectree – Learn complex concepts through AI-generated interactive SVGs (vectree.io)

2 points by functional_dev ↗ HN
Hi HN,

I launched Vectree about 3 weeks ago as an after work side project. It's basically a "visual Wikipedia" where you explore concepts through interactive, zoomable SVGs.

Link: https://vectree.io

Why I built it: Whenever I encountered a new complex concept, I just wanted a quick visual way to understand the basics. I started manually prompting LLMs to explain things to me by generating SVG schematics. It became so useful for me that I decided to automate the process and turn it into a web app.

How it works: You can browse the public graph of concepts totally for free. You click on different parts of an SVG diagram (nodes) to drill down into sub-concepts.

Bring Your Own Key (Private Lab): While browsing is free, I highly encourage creating an account and plugging in your own paid Gemini API key. This unlocks a "Private Lab" where you can: - Architect your own private concepts from scratch - Regenerate existing concepts (most concepts I generated with "flash" Gemini model) - Publish your private concepts to the public graph if you want to share them

Tech Stack: I used Elixir about 5 or 6 years ago. I kept hearing about how good its new AI/ML ecosystem is getting, so I used this project as an excuse to jump back in. - Backend: Elixir / Phoenix LiveView - Local AI: Bumblebee + Nx (running local embedding and toxicity models) - Cloud AI: Google Gemini (for generating the actual SVG structures and JSON) - DB: PostgreSQL + pgvector for semantic search

It's been a really fun experiment. I'd love for you to try it out and let me know what you think!

4 comments

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functional_dev
To be honest, I'm a total introvert. I've spent my career as an IC, but I’m trying to transition into being an "Architect" of systems that people actually value and pay for.

The biggest hurdle for me isn't the code. It's talking to customers. I’ve always been told to read The Mom Test, but I’m a visual learner and usually too busy building to sit down with a business book.

I used Vectree to generate a schematic for the book’s core framework (the "juice") so I could understand the filter process at a glance. It turned out to be a perfect example of why I built this:

https://vectree.io/c/the-mom-test

If you’re like me and want to understand a methodology or a complex system without the 200-page commitment, this is how I'm using the tool myself. I'd love to hear if this visual style helps you "get" it faster too.

You can download PDF of it as well!

https://vectree.io/pdf/c/the-mom-test

functional_dev
You might like these too:

High Output Management (Andrew Grove) https://vectree.io/c/high-output-management-andrew-grove

Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss) https://vectree.io/c/never-split-the-difference-chris-voss

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert Cialdini) https://vectree.io/c/influence-the-psychology-of-persuasion-...

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (Nir Eyal) https://vectree.io/c/hooked-how-to-build-habit-forming-produ...

Thinking in Systems (Donella Meadows) https://vectree.io/c/thinking-in-systems-donella-meadows

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stranger90
Saw Vectree on HN—love the pgvector + semantic search approach for the concept graph. As you scale the Private Lab and user-generated concepts, you might hit latency/cost walls with standard Postgres. Rivestack gives you sub-4ms pgvector queries at a fraction of what you'd pay for alternatives. Worth a quick chat if scaling is on your radar—happy to run a benchmark with your query patterns.