A web app for browsing paints available in Ireland. Find, browse and organise your paint projects.

Screenshot of Swatcher
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Swatcher is a free web application where you can browse, find, and organise paints available in Ireland. You can also generate palettes using AI to kickstart your ideas.

# Key Features

# Quick Colour Sampling

  • Colour picker and capture from your camera: Sample colors from your environment to find the closest available match
  • AI palette generation: Provide a prompt of the scene you want, and get back paint colours for interiors
  • Brand exploration: Browse nearly 8,000 paint colours by brand to find the paint you want

# Colour Management

  • Organised projects: Create projects and add your paint colours to them
  • Favourites: Save your favourites that you can pull into projects
  • Export options: Export your colour palettes to multiple web formats
  • Accessibility: Each generated palette comes with a contrast checker for accessibility on the web

# Technical Implementation

# Architecture

The app is built with Vue, and implements smart caching to keep things snappy.

  • Vue and Pinia: Reactive state means everything you do is instantly available
  • Firebase: Log in and store favourites, projects and palettes to access no matter where you are
  • Paint database: Instant access to nearly 8,000 paint colours from many brands available in Ireland

# Colour Science

Swatcher implements accurate color space conversions and supports multiple color models:

  • Closest matches: By comparing different colours, we can find the difference between them and return the closest available matches to a colour you provide, along with some alternatives
  • Complementary colours: Find suitable complementary colours to enhance your project, or get new ideas

# User Experience

# Performance

Optimised for daily use:

  • Responsive UI: Works on mobile to desktop across devices
  • Caching: Anything you view is stored locally for your current session, so no need to wait as you revisit pages

# Development Journey

This project started as a personal tool to explore generating colour palettes with AI. It grew from there to an interior design-focused app that draws on paint brands available in Ireland.

Key challenges included:

  • Colour accuracy: Ensuring paint colours match with the brands website
  • Performance optimization: Maintaining responsiveness during intensive operations
  • User interface: Balancing feature richness with simplicity
  • Color vs Colour: Writing code means using “color” when in readable text we write “colour”, it’s a constant battle

The app has evolved based on user feedback and real-world usage patterns, with regular updates adding new features while maintaining the core philosophy of simplicity and reliability.