Prism

Privacy-first adaptive photo and video library application powered by Tauri v2, React, and a high-performance Rust backend.

Quick Start | Features | Image Editor | Video Editor | Documentation

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Note

Prism is a unified, adaptive photo & video library application. It runs natively as a desktop app (Tauri v2), as a web app, or via Docker container deployment (prism-server).

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Rust (latest stable)
• Node.js v18+ and pnpm
• SQLite & ffmpeg/ffprobe

Install and Run Desktop App

# Install frontend dependencies
cd frontend && pnpm install && cd ..

# Option A: Run in Web Dev Mode (Browser UI + Rust Backend)
./run-web.sh

# Option B: Run in Native Desktop Shell Mode (Tauri v2)
./run-desktop.sh

The Rust backend runs on port 8269, and the Vite dev server on port 3005. Open http://localhost:3005 in Web Mode or use the Tauri desktop window.

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Desktop Features

Photo & Gallery Management

• Smart Import & Folder Watching — Automatically detects and indexes new photos from local media directories.
• EXIF Extraction — Parses full camera, GPS, exposure, and time metadata.
• Virtualized Photo Grid — High-performance grid powered by TanStack Virtual for fluid scrolling through 100k+ media assets.
• Full-Text Search — SQLite FTS5 index for fast discovery by location, caption, camera model, or OCR text.
• In-Process Face Recognition — Local SCRFD + ArcFace face detection with person grouping.
• Albums & Memories — Smart albums (documents, screenshots, places) and automated highlights.

Image Editor (19 Tools)

Non-destructive professional photo editor built directly into the desktop UI:

Category	Available Tools
Light	Exposure, brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks
Color	HSL per-band, color wheels, temperature, tint, vibrance, saturation
Tone	Per-channel RGB curves with bezier spline interpolation
Presets	Curated cinematic, vintage, and creative look presets
Selective	Adjustment layers with custom drawn masks (lasso, AI segmentation)
Portrait	Skin smoothing, face brightness, AI-powered face enhancements
Healing	AI-powered object removal and inpainting (LaMa ONNX)
Effects	Annotations, frames, grain, light leaks, vignettes, tilt-shift, LUT support
Transform	Crop, rotate, flip with aspect ratio locks
Export	JPEG, PNG, WebP export with custom quality settings

Video Editor (NLE)

Full non-linear multi-track video editing engine:

• Multi-track timeline supporting video, audio, and text overlays
• Split, trim, copy, paste, and delete clip operations
• Keyframe animation with bezier velocity curves
• Per-clip color grading and transitions
• Multi-cam editing and audio track mixing
• Speed ramping with variable speed control
• Background video proxy generation for smooth preview rendering
• Multi-format MP4 export with configurable codecs and bitrates

Interactive Map View

• Leaflet-based map visualization with marker clustering by GPS EXIF coordinates.
• Route drawing, density heatmaps, and temporal time-slider filtering.

Locked Folder Vault

• Argon2id-encrypted storage area for private media.
• Auto-locking session handling and hidden media state.

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Desktop Architecture

graph TB
    subgraph Desktop_App["Prism Desktop App Shell"]
        subgraph Frontend_UI["Vite React 18 UI"]
            Views["Views (PhotoGrid, Editor, Map, Albums)"]
            Stores["Zustand State Stores"]
        end

        subgraph Backend_Process["Native Rust Backend (Axum)"]
            API["REST API Router (Port 8269)"]
            Services["ML Inference / Media Analyzers"]
        end
    end

    DB[("SQLite WAL + FTS5")]
    FS["Local Storage (uploads/ & thumbnails/)"]

    Frontend_UI --> |"HTTP REST (127.0.0.1:8269)"| Backend_Process
    Backend_Process --> DB
    Backend_Process --> FS

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Documentation Links

Document	Description
Architecture	Technical architecture, component layout, and data flow
CLI Reference	Command-line interface and plugin management
Image Editor Guide	In-depth breakdown of all 19 image editing tools
Video Editor Guide	NLE timeline features and video pipeline
AI Features	Local ONNX models and AI capability documentation
Setup Guide	System dependency installation and troubleshooting
Security Model	Locked folder, encryption, and privacy details
API Reference	REST API endpoint documentation
Plugin Development	Guide to building, packaging, and publishing Prism plugins
Database Schema	SQLite tables and indexes reference

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Configuration

Prism Desktop is configured via environment variables or runtime settings:

Variable	Default	Description
HOST	127.0.0.1	Local backend bind address
PORT	8269	Local backend port
DATABASE_URL	sqlite://prism.db	SQLite database URL
UPLOAD_DIR	uploads	Local directory for imported media
THUMBNAILS_DIR	thumbnails	Directory for generated WebP thumbnails
WEB_STATIC_DIR	./frontend/dist	Directory for standalone static web serving
API_KEY	(empty)	Optional API key authentication header
GPU_MODE	cpu	Inference mode (cpu, cuda, metal)
RUST_LOG	info	Logging verbosity level

Desktop Development Commands

# Frontend type check
cd frontend && pnpm tsc

# Frontend linter
cd frontend && pnpm lint

# Frontend tests
cd frontend && pnpm test

# Build frontend production bundle
cd frontend && pnpm build

# Rust backend tests
cd backend_rust && cargo test