SketchSensAI

Inspiration

Drawing has always been a passion of ours, and we believe everyone should have the chance to experience its joy. That’s why we created SketchSensAI, an AI-powered drawing coach that guides users step by step in bringing anything they imagine to life. Our mission is to make drawing accessible to everyone, build confidence, and inspire creativity through art.

What it does

SketchSensAI is an AI-powered drawing tool that helps users improve their artistic skills through interactive practice. Users can draw with a mouse, touch, or stylus, choose preset subjects or describe their own, and practice using reference images and customizable shape guides. With step-by-step outlines, real-time AI feedback, and side-by-side comparisons, SketchSensAI makes learning to draw more engaging, accessible, and intuitive.

How we built it

We built the app with a JavaScript frontend and a Node.js backend. The drawing canvas handles input, undo and redo, and guide overlays. Hugging Face image generation creates Freehand references, while a vision model provides drawing feedback. The app can connect to a local vision model over Tailscale.

Challenges we ran into

Turning generated images into useful tracing guides was challenging. We needed to extract clean contours, split them into manageable parts, and keep the reference and guide aligned. We also had to handle slow or unavailable model responses without losing the user’s drawing.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We brought the full practice flow together: start with a preset or an original idea, get a reference, work through a guide, and compare the result. We’re proud that people can choose how much guidance they see while keeping their own sketch at the center.

What we learned

We learned that useful AI feedback depends on the full experience around the model: clear controls, helpful timing, reliable error handling, and a drawing flow that still feels good when a model is slow or unavailable. We also learned how to combine generated images with vector contours for interactive tracing.

What's next for SketchSensAI

We’d like to improve the guide and feedback quality, make it easier to use across devices, and add secure accounts and cloud-based sketch storage. We also want to explore ways for people to share practice sessions and learn from each other.

Built With

• codex
• css3
• html
• hugging-face
• javascript
• node.js
• svg
• tailscale
• three.js
• vscode