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Chromatic Crucible v2.0

High-performance, native GPU-accelerated non-destructive photo editor and creative utility written entirely in Rust.

Flagship App AGPL-3.0 Rust / wgpu Active Status

Overview

Chromatic Crucible v2.0 is our flagship image editing suite. Built from the ground up in 100% native Rust with zero unsafe blocks, Crucible v2.0 delivers extreme performance, sub-15ms cold startup times, and a minimal memory footprint (~32 MB idle RAM) representing a 97.3% memory reduction over legacy runtimes.

Leveraging WebGPU hardware acceleration via wgpu and WGSL compute shaders, Crucible processes 16-bit IEEE 754 half-float RGBA textures with sub-4ms frame passes (~260 FPS capacity). Its modular architecture incorporates sandboxed WebAssembly (WASM) guest plugins via wasmtime and local encrypted credential management for AI features.

Key Architecture & Highlights

Native Rust & WebGPU Hardware Acceleration

  • 0 Unsafe Blocks: 100% memory-safe codebase across all 6 workspace crates.
  • WGSL Compute Shader Pipeline: Offloads exposure, levels, contrast, HSL color balance, Gaussian blur, composite passes, curves, and marching ants selection outlines directly to the GPU.
  • 16-Bit Half-Float Raster Buffer: High-precision color pipeline (`ImageBuffer16`) preserving maximum dynamic range from camera RAW inputs.
  • Sub-15ms Cold Launch & 32MB Idle RAM: Instantaneous startup and minimal memory footprint.

Sandboxed WASM Plugin Engine

  • Wasmtime Runtime: Safely execute third-party WASM guest plugins with zero host filesystem or network access.
  • WASI Isolation: Extensible filter and tool APIs operating within isolated WebAssembly memory boundaries.

Pure-Rust Computer Vision & Retouching

  • RANSAC Panoramic Stitching: OpenCV-free pure-Rust homography estimation and feature matching for zero-config cross-compilation.
  • Catmull-Rom Brush & Poisson Healing: Smooth antialiased brush strokes and content-aware Poisson image editing.
  • Selection Algebra & Masking: Non-destructive layer masks, selection algebra (grow, shrink, feather, invert), and color range selection.

Camera RAW & Multi-Format I/O

  • Direct RAW decoding (CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, RW2) via rawloader.
  • Parallel OpenRaster (.ora) project streaming with multi-core rayon compression.
  • Export support for PNG, JPEG, TIFF, WebP, BMP, and EXIF metadata inspection via kamadak-exif.

Local & Cloud AI Tools

  • Pluggable AiProvider trait supporting offline local inference and cloud AI APIs with encrypted credentials stored in the OS keyring.

Building & Running from Source

Chromatic Crucible v2.0 requires a standard Rust 1.75+ toolchain.

1. Run Development UI Shell

bash - Cargo Run
# Clone repository git clone https://gitlab.com/quantum-hue/chromaticcrucible.git cd chromaticcrucible # Launch release binary targeting crucible-ui crate cargo run --release -p crucible-ui

2. Run Test Suite & Packaging

bash - Tests & Packaging
# Execute full workspace test matrix cargo test --release # Build Debian package (.deb) cargo deb -p crucible-ui # Build standalone Linux AppImage ./packaging/build_appimage.sh