On 2/2/07, Reed Hedges <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Karsten and Chris are both right and have insightful comments.
thx Reed :) > > There's no real computational or memory restriction on the size of a > volume of space *as a volume of space* Chris is talking about the > representation of coordinates. > > [[I.e. the only reason that a 1x1x1 kilometer space is different from a > 1x1x1 meter space is that the 3 numbers are bigger. It's not like every > 1x1x1 m cube within the 1x1x1 km space needs N bytes of RAM or anything :)]] > > In the past we've talked about the problems of resolution of large > floating point numbers but never came to any solution for that per se, > but perhaps to someday do automatic subdivision of the space into > multiple sectors, whenever a need for a tool like that comes up. So > you enter new subbordinate or "nested" coordinate systems as you move > around. > subdivision of space is the most common approach but it does not give a true continuous world space to move around in and has a lot of overheads managing the segments. There are also a multitude of special case problems that occur at the boundaries: it can become a mess. Artificially managing this thru portals is ok for games but does not suit all apps - like a virtual earth, for example. > If you want to be able to see that whole galaxy in the rendering all at > once that might be a bit of a challenge, but should be possible to > figure out. (My guess is that graphics research has already discovered > some solutions to this?) The best combo of techniques from research IMHO is what I call origin-centric techniques that build on the concept of a continuous floating origin (in the client side display system), includes special management of clip planes and LOD and a slightly different simulation pipeline architecture end-to-end from server to client. Plus stuff like imposters for distant objects in galaxies. Note since this is all the subject of my thesis I may be considered a bit biased in this area :) cheers, chris _______________________________________________ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
