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<https://youtu.be/SDS5gLSiLg0> mindbogglingly satisfying overview of a bunch of graphics algorithms

not an expert but i think the first “real” example may be relevant for <@UJN1TAYEQ> if i’m remembering correctly that you’re the one developing curv and that it uses SDFs. maybe you already know about this stuff but it seems like a solid optimization

<@UHWC9PXBL> Thanks for the mention. I use a variant of marching cubes to export mesh files (eg, STL) for 3D printing. I don't use meshes for on-screen rendering, though: triangle meshes are too limiting. Instead, I use sphere tracing.

John Hart's paper on Sphere Tracing is the most important paper for the Signed Distance Field representation of geometric shapes. Sphere tracing can render a wide range of SDF shapes, including infinite shapes, including 3D surfaces with no thickness, including deep zooms into 3D fractals. (It's the only SDF rendering technique that does fractals.) And it can be implemented efficiently on a GPU. <http://mathinfo.univ-reims.fr/IMG/pdf/hart94sphere.pdf>

Sphere tracing is cool. You still need to take an arbitrary, theoretically unbounded number of steps along the ray toward the surface, right? Or is there an optimization to avoid that cliff?

<@UC2A2ARPT> There are pathological cases, but if you know what they are, you can avoid them and make cool art. You can also use a bunch of optimization techniques together to avoid the majority (but not all) of the pathological cases. I'm still learning this stuff. Lots of new techniques are being invented, which I eventually find out about. If I can learn all of these techniques, and implement them in Curv, then I will really have something interesting.

<@UHWC9PXBL> Finally watched the talk. That was fantastic. Casey is such a fun and dynamic presenter (I've watched a few Handmade Hero episodes and some of the talks on his blog), but beyond that, this is the best explanation of GJK I've ever seen. Really cool.

he has an “implementing GJK” talk on his channel with a whiteboard that i haven’t seen yet but i have high hopes

It accompanied a blog post on his site. I'd start there.