Generative Art Marketplace

A full-stack + data science project that lets users generate unique artworks via a GAN model and mint them as NFTs on IPFS, all through a Next.js frontend with Web3 wallet integration.

Features

• Generative AI: FastAPI microservice runs a GAN to produce 512×512 images from random seeds.
• Web3 Minting: Users connect their MetaMask wallet, generate art, and mint metadata to IPFS with a stubbed blockchain transaction.
• Persistent Storage: Minted tokens are saved in MongoDB Atlas via Mongoose.
• Caching: Redis cache speeds up repeated art generation for the same seed.
• Modern UI: Next.js + TailwindCSS + shadcn/ui components + Framer Motion animations + Sonner toasts.

Architecture

• Next.js (frontend) handles UI, wallet connect, and fetches /generate & /mint.

• Express (backend) proxies to the GAN service, manages caching, IPFS upload, and database persistence.

• FastAPI microservice loads a GAN model to generate images.

• Redis caches generated images by seed for 1 hour.

• MongoDB Atlas stores minted NFT records.

• IPFS (via ipfs-core) stores metadata JSON.

Tech Stack

Frontend: Next.js, React, Tailwind

UI Components: shadcn/ui, Framer Motion

Toasts: Sonner

Backend API: Node.js, Express, TS

ML Service: Python, FastAPI, PyTorch

Caching: Redis (ioredis)

Storage: MongoDB Atlas, ipfs-core

Dev Tools: pnpm, Docker (optional)

Pre-requisites

• Node.js ≥16, pnpm

• Python 3.10+ and pip

• Redis server (local or cloud)

• MongoDB Atlas free cluster

• MetaMask extension in your browser

Run Locally

1. Clone & Install:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/gen-art-marketplace.git
cd gen-art-marketplace
# install root (workspaces)
pnpm install

2. Configure Environment:

Create a .env in backend/ with:

PORT=4000
MONGODB_URI=your_atlas_connection_string

3. Start GAN Service:

cd gan-service
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --reload

4. Start Redis (if not running):

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install redis
brew services start redis

5. Run backend API:

cd ../backend
pnpm dev

6. Run frontend:

cd ../frontend
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Testing and Usage

• Click Connect Wallet (MetaMask pop‑up).

• Click Generate Art to fetch GAN‑generated image.

• Click Mint to IPFS to upload metadata and get a stub transaction.

• Check your Atlas DB for the new NFT record.