I understand this has been discussed. Also, I apologize for the lack of precision.
The machine computes, generating a stream of images -- video. We view this in real time or save it for later. But the silicon for creating the signal has been pumped full of tricks to patch visual quirks ad hoc to the point where noticable improvment scales logarithmically with linear silicon increase. And, though id tried to simplify at least lighting (exempli gratia, Doom Three, though it still pulls some tricks (e.g., the 'heat shimmer' 'shader' effect)), people (e.g, Valve, consumers) don't really seem to care, as long as things look 'close enough' to reality. In Plan 9, I work with rectangle images that translate throughout and translate on-off the visable rectangle. Also, rectangle images (should be able to) scale. Idealy, too, mathematical models could be visualized in real time. Abstract things as this can be done perfectly with our current bag of tricks, but any hack at potraying reality should work with light particles: id est, it should trace rays. And, could a 'raytracer' tackle abstract things just as well, or better, too? First this project wanted just to work in two dimensions, the way things were first, and seem to be going. (I use only cheap Matrox silicon and plan to never again employ OpenGL.) The Intel architecture great inertia -- it is here to stay. Is it beyond redemption? Or will two, four, eight, ..., ad infinitum cores permit real time 'raytracing'? Assume no and consider that 'video card' developers have less constraints (also why we have a hard time using stuff by Nvidia and ATI). I think 'raytracing' will be implemented by 'video card' developers. This project currently conserves the old bag of tricks... but will it be possible to adapt it to 'raytrace'? If not, I see no reason to use it over the Intel. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
