Comment by crazygringo
20 hours ago
I just want to say this isn't just amazing -- it's my new favorite map of NYC.
It's genuinely astonishing how much clearer this is than a traditional satellite map -- how it has just the right amount of complexity. I'm looking at areas I've spent a lot of time in, and getting an even better conceptual understanding of the physical layout than I've ever been able to get from satellite (technically airplane) images. This hits the perfect "sweet spot" of detail with clear "cartoon" coloring.
I see a lot of criticism here that this isn't "pixel art", so maybe there's some better term to use. I don't know what to call this precise style -- it's almost pixel art without the pixels? -- but I love it. Serious congratulations.
Author here, and to reiterate another reply - all of the critique of "pixel art" is completely fair. Aesthetically and philosophically, what AI does for "pixel art" is very off. And once you see the AI you can't really unsee it.
But I didn't want to call it a "SimCity" map, though that's really the vibe/inspiration I wanted to capture, because that implies a lot of other things, so I used the term "pixel art" even though I figured it might get a lot of (valid) pushback...
In general, labels and genres are really hard - "techno" to a deep head in Berlin is very different than "techno" to my cousins. This issue has always been fraught, because context and meaning and technique are all tangled up in these labels which are so important to some but so easily ignored by others. And those questions are even harder in the age of AI where the machine just gobbles up everything.
But regardless, it was a fun project! And to me at least it's better to just make cool ambitious things in good faith and understand that art by definition is meaningful and therefore makes people feel things from love to anger to disgust to fascination.
My scientific opinion is that you cooked. noice.
Will "Retro art" do?
Low-res cel shading would be a better descriptor. It lends itself to looking like pixel art when zoomed out, but cel shading when zoomed in.
No. Lean into "pixel art".
Hot take: "photo realistic" is just a style.
If it doesn't exist and wasn't taken with a camera, then "photo realistic" is just the name of the style.
Same with "pixel art", "water color", and everything else.
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just FYI, there are some very obvious inaccuracies (stitching artefacts?) in this map, especially noticeable e.g. on Roosevelt Island around Roosevelt Bridge, or naround Pier 17 next to Brooklyn Bridge
There's a strange error where half the Broadway Junction subway station just... disappears. And seems to be replaced with some generically hallucinated city blocks? But that's the thing with AI, the quality control at scale is tough. I'm just happy this seems to be about 99.9+% accurate.
It’s almost like sim city (2000), but not quite. It night help if the overall mayo was fully square.
More like Sim City 3000 methinks. Sim City is more pixel artsy / lower resolution, while 3000 have enough resolution to feel more like an illustration rather than a videogame.
High-res pixel art? Maybe adding an extra zoom level so people can actually see the pixels as big fat squares would help? Of course purists would probably still not call it pixel art, but as you wrote, leaning more into the "pixel art" aspect would hurt the realistic representation.
Actually, if you only look at (midtown and uptown) Manhattan, is looks more "pixel art"-y because of the 90-degree street grid and most buildings being aligned with it. But the other boroughs don't lend themselves to this style so well. Of course, you could have forced all buildings to have angles in 45° steps, but that would have deviated from "ground truth" a lot.
TBH, the nano banana ones are closer to pixel art than Qwen Image ones. Much closer.
This looks like early 2000 2.5D art, like Diablo style.
Feels a bit like between cel shading and isometric pixel art...
Isn't this comment AI? The writing screams ChatGPT to me.
This comment isn't just amazing -- it's my new favorite comment on Hacker News.