Seven Things for May 13th, 2021

So much good stuff is going on:

  • The Graphics Codex is now free on the web. This thing’s both a good source of tutorials on all sorts of areas of 3D graphics, as well as a reference of handy code bits. It’s basically “stuff Morgan McGuire got interested in and decided to write up.” It’s best integrated source for learning about ray marching algorithms that I know. The book’s main site is here.
  • For ray marching, also see Inigo Quilez’s site (you know, the Shadertoy guy). This should be old news, but just in case… He writes on a bunch of topics and rarely publishes in journals or presents at conferences, so there’s a mess of useful bits on his site.
  • Speaking of Shadertoy: English Lane. Quite incredible (with maybe a few too many lanes, but that’s a niggle).
  • A Survey on Bounding Volume Hierarchies for Ray Tracing” is indeed a monster survey. Someone still needs to prove forming an optimal BVH is NP-hard. If you’re a professor, give it as a homework assignment “by accident” – someone will probably prove it and you’ll get to be on Snopes.
  • Running a virtual conference and want to know how to use OBS (Open Broadcaster Software)? Zdravko Velinov wrote a detailed article (two, actually) all about doing this for I3D 2020 and 2021.
  • Speaking of which, the I3D 2021 awards are here, with paper links here. Also, I3D 2022 is looking for more help, especially with publicity and website redesign – consider it! You can write them here.
  • I want this manga book, GPU Optimization: Getting Started, in English, now. I particularly appreciate the character with GPU cards for ears and a GPU chip as a third eye or whatever. Here’s a page after applying Google Translate: