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Starspelled – Turn Words into Constellations

Starspelled – Turn Words into Constellations

by photonboom·Mar 19, 2026·1 point·0 comments
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AI Analysis

●●SolidEye CandyWizardryRabbit Hole

CMA-ES optimization finds real stars matching your text—Neal Agarwal's version doesn't do this.

Strengths
  • •CMA-ES refinement after coarse grid search is legitimate optimization craft, not just API calls
  • •Real HYG catalog star data means constellations map to actual celestial coordinates
  • •Manual vertex dragging lets users fine-tune results when algorithmic matching falls short
Weaknesses
  • •Novelty experience with limited repeat use—fun for 10 minutes, then what
  • •Inspired by Neal Agarwal's constellation-draw, which already popularized this concept
Category
Design
Target Audience

Curious users, educators, and anyone who enjoys interactive visualizations

Similar To

Neal Agarwal's Constellation Draw · SkyMap · Stellarium

Post Description

I built a site that turns any word or short phrase into a constellation using star data from the HYG catalog.

I was inspired by Neal Agarwal's constellation-draw, but approached it as an inverse fitting problem. Given text, find real stars that trace the letters. It uses a coarse grid search plus CMA-ES refinement to search for matches. You can reroll results, switch to a globe view, and drag vertices around to tune the constellation manually.

Example for the input "HI HN": https://starspelled.com/#BAEAAKAVRDAKF3___7uEBFOfsQQjABlKPmu...

Source: https://github.com/JoshuaMosier/written-in-the-stars

Feedback welcome!

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