Apple SHARP
View synthesis model in AI tools
Fast, free model that turns one photo into a 3D view in seconds, good for small side-to-side motion. Critics say it breaks down on larger camera moves and inpainting.
Fast, free model that turns one photo into a 3D view in seconds, good for small side-to-side motion. Critics say it breaks down on larger camera moves and inpainting.
46 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 30
- criticize it
- 16
- approval share
- 65%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 30 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Reliable image resizing and processing library
“Been using this forever in CloudFront behaviors to auto-resize images.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Sharp: High performance Node.js image processing/optimization” “Sharp (the Node.js libvips binding) is surprisingly good for this”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard” “Great library to have at hand when you need to deal with images.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Sharp: High performance Node.js image processing/optimization” - Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Sharp: High performance Node.js image processing/optimization”
- Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Sharp: High performance Node.js image processing/optimization”
Fast, even on CPU
“Apple's Sharp is awesome in that it is fast, but it only generates a small depth sample from the image.”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Show HN: Apple's Sharp Running in the Browser via ONNX Runtime Web” “This software does that in less than a second, creating a 3D model that can be accurately moved”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image” “Works great, model file is 2.8 GB, on M2 rendering took a few seconds”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image” - Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “Try out Apple's ML-sharp 2d photo to 3D converter on your own computer”
Easy to run locally
“It's pretty trivial to get running locally and generating the PLY files.”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Revelium Studio turns a single image into a navigable 3D Gaussian Splat model” “one of the easiest AI repos to get running”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image” Good for side-to-side 3D motion
“It falls apart once you move too much, but for a little side-wiggling or a second-eye view for VR, it's great.”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Gaussian Splat of a Strawberry” “This is great for turning a photo into a dynamic-IPD stereo pair”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak depth; results below demo
“the results were nowhere close to the results in the demo”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Show HN: Apple's Sharp Running in the Browser via ONNX Runtime Web” “It doesn't quite get the depth right in anything, and the edges of things look off.”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image” “Apple's Sharp is awesome in that it is fast, but it only generates a small depth sample from the image.”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Show HN: Apple's Sharp Running in the Browser via ONNX Runtime Web” - Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image”
- Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image”
Fails on inpainting and angled views
“It's interesting how it fails in the section where you need to in-paint.”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “SHARP, an approach to photorealistic view synthesis from a single image” “because this does not do any angled inpainting”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Apple releases open-source model that instantly turns 2D photos into 3D views” Research-only license, not open source
“There's no reason to believe that weights are copyrightable. The only reason to pay attention to this "license" is because it's enforced by Apple”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Apple releases open-source model that instantly turns 2D photos into 3D views” “It effectively prevents the community from using Apple's solution”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Apple releases open-source model that instantly turns 2D photos into 3D views” “"Exclusively for research purposes" so not actually open source.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Apple releases open-source model that instantly turns 2D photos into 3D views” - Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Apple releases open-source model that instantly turns 2D photos into 3D views”
Crashes or high memory use
“Loading the model crashes my browser tab from memory usage”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Show HN: Apple's Sharp Running in the Browser via ONNX Runtime Web” “It froze up my computer, had to hard-boot lol”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Show HN: Apple's Sharp Running in the Browser via ONNX Runtime Web” “often a redeploy that recompiled Sharp just crashed the full VM (out of memory)”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “Bun 1.4 Rust rewrite is not looking good”
What people said
40 of the 50 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“often a redeploy that recompiled Sharp just crashed the full VM (out of memory)”
“The API is shaped after Sharp:”
“so most of sharp, but not all.”
“It falls apart once you move too much, but for a little side-wiggling or a second-eye view for VR, it's great.”
“It froze up my computer, had to hard-boot lol”
“Apple's Sharp is awesome in that it is fast, but it only generates a small depth sample from the image.”
“it's pretty cool what a 2gb NN can do from a single image”
“Sharp is trying to solve a specific problem”
“Loading the model crashes my browser tab from memory usage”
“The effect - although only a crude wrapper around what Sharp already does - was quite transformative and mesmerising.”
“the results were nowhere close to the results in the demo”
“There is a work around if you don't mind lowering the Security settings”
“Sharp (the Node.js libvips binding) is surprisingly good for this”
“Apple are doing exciting work with image-to-Gaussian models”
“It's a very fast model, even with your CPU it doesn't take very long.”
“I think this one is better”
“It's pretty trivial to get running locally and generating the PLY files.”
“Where Sharp still wins (blur, crop, etc.)”
“It effectively prevents the community from using Apple's solution”
“because this does not do any angled inpainting”
“Exclusively for research purposes so not actually open source.”
“There's no reason to believe that weights are copyrightable. The only reason to pay attention to this "license" is because it's enforced by Apple”
“"Exclusively for research purposes" so not actually open source.”
“We're doing the same! The Lambda function also has an authentication layer, so we can protect user-uploaded assets.”
“Used it at projects at scale and it never let me down.”
“Good library. API can be a bit quirky.”
“Been using this forever in CloudFront behaviors to auto-resize images.”
“Great library to have at hand when you need to deal with images.”
“one of the easiest AI repos to get running”
“For me, TMPI and SHARP look great.”
“The example doesn't look particularly impressive to say the least.”
“definitely not convincing for literally any portrait photographs I have seen”
“the lack of a human face in the example set is likely a bit of a tell”
“Interestingly Apple's own models don't work on MPS”
“Works great, model file is 2.8 GB, on M2 rendering took a few seconds”
“This software does that in less than a second, creating a 3D model that can be accurately moved”
“It doesn't quite get the depth right in anything, and the edges of things look off.”
“This is great for turning a photo into a dynamic-IPD stereo pair”
“It's interesting how it fails in the section where you need to in-paint.”
“I've checked npmjs and sharp is still in beta mode”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.