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From: Rafal 'Raf256' Maj
Subject: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 10:16:39
Message: <Xns9261A4F763F1raf256com@204.213.191.226>
imho ISOsurface is the most flexible and powerfull future in Pov :)

Only disadvantage is it's speed in some cases.
I have idea for a opimization, that in some cases can prove _realy_ fast.

Let's think about iso in shape like :

.....
.   .
..*..
.   .
.....

the '.' border shaphe is quite smooth, and in tha areas max gradient is 
about 0.1
but center '*' shape is very sharpl, and it's max gradient is 50.0

so entire ISO is calculated with gradient 50.0

but if we divide ISO to separate iso's with diffrent max_gradient it will 
ernder much faster. Problem with using i.e. union/merge of smal ISO's is 
that ther will be some artefacts in places where elements touches 
togeather.

I will soon prepare some examples (images+code), ideas how toimplement it, 
and suggested syntax. Do You find this idea interesting ?


-- 
#macro g(U,V)(.4*abs(sin(9*sqrt(pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))))*pow(1-min(1,(sqrt(
pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))*.3)),2)+.9)#end#macro p(c)#if(c>1)#local l=mod(c,100
);g(2*div(l,10)-8,2*mod(l,10)-8)*p(div(c,100))#else 1#end#end light_source{
y 2}sphere{z*20 9pigment{function{p(26252423)*p(36455644)*p(66656463)}}}//M


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From: Tom Melly
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 10:29:03
Message: <3d4e8baf$1@news.povray.org>
"Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> wrote in message
news:Xns### [at] 204213191226...
>
> imho ISOsurface is the most flexible and powerfull future in Pov :)
>
> Only disadvantage is it's speed in some cases.
> I have idea for a opimization, that in some cases can prove _realy_ fast.
>

Been there, done that ;)

Of course, it depends on knowing quite a lot about the eventual shape of the iso
and where the requirements for a high max gradient will be.

I've also combined it with other time-savers - consider a ridged mf landscape
with high peaks in the distance, but a central plane.

Not only does it make sense to muck around with different max gradients, but
different bounding as well, since the high bounding box required for the distant
peaks is very redundant on the near plane.


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From: Christoph Hormann
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 11:06:58
Message: <3D4E948F.6A8571BB@gmx.de>
Rafal 'Raf256' Maj wrote:
> 
> imho ISOsurface is the most flexible and powerfull future in Pov :)
> 
> Only disadvantage is it's speed in some cases.
> I have idea for a opimization, that in some cases can prove _realy_ fast.
> 
> [...]

A few thoughts about that:

It's out of question that the isosurface intersection test is something
that could be improved.  There are various possible approaches to achieve
speed improvements, for example based on precalculations and caching of
function values.  What's most important for such an improvement IMO is
that it should not be too specialized for a particular type of function.

And you should probably be careful when promising an enormeous speed
improvement.

Concerning your suggestion, you should probably try out 'evaluate' and
play with the parameters, dividing a larger isosurface into smaller ones
is a useful trick, but the borders are often a problem, especially if you
also use different accuracy values.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 03 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______


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From: Rafal 'Raf256' Maj
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 11:32:17
Message: <Xns9261B1CB05113raf256com@204.213.191.226>
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote in
news:3D4E948F.6A8571BB@gmx.de 
>> Only disadvantage is it's speed in some cases.
>> I have idea for a opimization, that in some cases can prove _realy_
>> fast. 

> A few thoughts about that:
> It's out of question that the isosurface intersection test is
> something that could be improved. 

so I'll be hepay to help in improving it :) 

> There are various possible
> approaches to achieve speed improvements, for example based on
> precalculations and caching of function values.  

> What's most important
> for such an improvement IMO is that it should not be too specialized
> for a particular type of function. 

it's useful for all functions
 
> And you should probably be careful when promising an enormeous speed
> improvement.

I'm preparing some tests right now :)

> Concerning your suggestion, you should probably try out 'evaluate' and
> play with the parameters, dividing a larger isosurface into smaller
> ones is a useful trick, but the borders are often a problem,
> especially if you also use different accuracy values.

yes, that's wy I want that future to be coded into POV, and using union 
{...} of iso's is just for testing purpose, because it doesn't take into 
account artefacts on borders of bounding boxes


-- 
#macro g(U,V)(.4*abs(sin(9*sqrt(pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))))*pow(1-min(1,(sqrt(
pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))*.3)),2)+.9)#end#macro p(c)#if(c>1)#local l=mod(c,100
);g(2*div(l,10)-8,2*mod(l,10)-8)*p(div(c,100))#else 1#end#end light_source{
y 2}sphere{z*20 9pigment{function{p(26252423)*p(36455644)*p(66656463)}}}//M


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From: Christopher James Huff
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 12:35:15
Message: <chrishuff-0D33B2.11250805082002@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <Xns### [at] 204213191226>,
 "Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> wrote:

> imho ISOsurface is the most flexible and powerfull future in Pov :)

First, *it is not ISOsurface*! The word is "isosurface", the "iso" used 
here is not an acronym for anything, isosurface just means equipotential 
surface, a surface where a function is equal to a certain potential or 
threshold value.


> but if we divide ISO to separate iso's with diffrent max_gradient it will 
> ernder much faster. Problem with using i.e. union/merge of smal ISO's is 
> that ther will be some artefacts in places where elements touches 
> togeather.

How do you propose to do this? Have the user create another function 
describing the gradient of the isosurface function?
You would need a smoothly varying value for the reason you mentioned, it 
will create artifacts otherwise. Automatically analyzing the function 
and creating the gradient function is not practical. One possible 
alternative would be to create a voxelfield of gradient values over the 
isosurface and use that for the gradient value...this could use quite a 
bit of memory though, and add overhead which would just slow down other 
functions, so you would definitely want a way to turn it off.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/


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From: Rafal 'Raf256' Maj
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 12:38:51
Message: <Xns9261BD13FE076raf256com@204.213.191.226>
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom> wrote in
news:chr### [at] netplexaussieorg 

> First, *it is not ISOsurface*! The word is "isosurface", the "iso"

> How do you propose to do this?

> One
> possible alternative would be to create a voxelfield of gradient
> values over the isosurface and use that for the gradient value...this

yes, and in addition :

> could use quite a bit of memory though, and add overhead which would
> just slow down other functions, so you would definitely want a way to
> turn it off. 

slow down ? no, why ? maybe in some rare cases. Idea is to use voxelfield, 
maybe optimized into set of boxes, in some examples it will work perfect, 
please wait just a minut, I will post a full example



-- 
#macro g(U,V)(.4*abs(sin(9*sqrt(pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))))*pow(1-min(1,(sqrt(
pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))*.3)),2)+.9)#end#macro p(c)#if(c>1)#local l=mod(c,100
);g(2*div(l,10)-8,2*mod(l,10)-8)*p(div(c,100))#else 1#end#end light_source{
y 2}sphere{z*20 9pigment{function{p(26252423)*p(36455644)*p(66656463)}}}//M


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From: Christopher James Huff
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 13:00:53
Message: <chrishuff-B76317.11504605082002@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <Xns### [at] 204213191226>,
 "Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> wrote:

> slow down ? no, why ? maybe in some rare cases. Idea is to use voxelfield, 
> maybe optimized into set of boxes, in some examples it will work perfect, 
> please wait just a minut, I will post a full example

Yes, slow down. Computing a value from a voxel field is obviously slower 
than using an existing variable. It would have to be computed for each 
end of each interval, instead of just using the same variable and value 
for all intervals. It would not be extremely slow, but it would slow 
down functions which don't need the "gradient map", so you would 
definitely want an option to turn it off and use a constant max gradient 
value.

"optimized into set of boxes"...what do you think voxels are?

And the memory...assume 32 bit floats are used instead of 64 bit 
doubles, for compactness. A 128*128*128 field would have 2,097,152 
voxels of 4 bytes each...8 megabytes for the gradient map for that 
isosurface. You could reduce precision further, but converting it into a 
float or double value for the calculations will add more overhead.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/


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From: Rafal 'Raf256' Maj
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 13:15:48
Message: <Xns9261C35851D0Draf256com@204.213.191.226>
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom> wrote in
news:chr### [at] netplexaussieorg 

> Yes, slow down. Computing a value from a voxel field is obviously
> slower than using an existing variable. 

not computing is needed, this voxel field will have no interpolation

just, for pixels in <0,0,0>-<1,1,1> tak max_gradient 2.0 
etc

> "optimized into set of boxes"...what do you think voxels are?

voxel is a set of SAME SIZE boxes, and therefore :
 
> And the memory...assume 32 bit floats are used instead of 64 bit 
> doubles, for compactness. A 128*128*128 field would have 2,097,152 

while I was thinking of something that.. hmm how to say it... like uhm 
antialias, or 3d version of binary-tree 

2d example for this :

11112222 start with 4 cubes and calcualte theirs max gradient.
11112222 if gradient is same in all 4 (or almost simmilar in some
33334444 threshold) -  make 1 cube with, end finish, if not :
33334444

1122  for each of 4 cubes, divide it into 4 smaller cubes, and repeat
3344  previous step

as in AA, we need to define max-recursion-level and threshold

example, we have a box and torus :

***
***
***  ** 
    *  *
     ** 

we will need :
- one big box in upper-left that covers ball,
- 2 boxes in lower-left and upper-right with max-gradient = 0
- several small boxes that will describe quite compicated shape of torus
- one medium box inside in torus with max_grad = 0 (hole in torus)

so we will need about 10 boxes, now think about :

************
************
************
************ 
*************
          *  *
           **

1 biig box + 3..10 smaller will describe this shape, as well as
regular gird of about 20x10 pixels

in 3d this approach will give even better results

implementation  - 'binary' tree, but each node wil have 4 sons, not 2



-- 
#macro g(U,V)(.4*abs(sin(9*sqrt(pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))))*pow(1-min(1,(sqrt(
pow(x-U,2)+pow(y-V,2))*.3)),2)+.9)#end#macro p(c)#if(c>1)#local l=mod(c,100
);g(2*div(l,10)-8,2*mod(l,10)-8)*p(div(c,100))#else 1#end#end light_source{
y 2}sphere{z*20 9pigment{function{p(26252423)*p(36455644)*p(66656463)}}}//M


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From: Christopher James Huff
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 14:31:05
Message: <chrishuff-5AF2BF.13205905082002@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <Xns### [at] 204213191226>,
 "Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> wrote:

> > Yes, slow down. Computing a value from a voxel field is obviously
> > slower than using an existing variable. 
> 
> not computing is needed, this voxel field will have no interpolation
> 
> just, for pixels in <0,0,0>-<1,1,1> tak max_gradient 2.0 
> etc

Have you ever done any programming? It doesn't sound like it.
You still have to find the correct voxels and get their value. It is 
very obvious that this will have more overhead than simply using a 
single value.
BTW, I was wrong: you wouldn't just need the gradient value at each end 
of each interval, you would need the gradient values for all the voxels 
the interval goes through. That's quite a bit more overhead...best thing 
would probably be to build a list of all voxels the ray passes through 
and process using the list instead of directly accessing the voxel 
field, sub-intervals could then just use segments of this list. And it 
still isn't foolproof, there could be a high gradient area that falls 
between the voxel samples, though you could supersample the voxels to 
reduce that risk, at a cost of increasing the parse time. It would be 
considerably slower than accessing a constant max_gradient, though it 
might be fast enough to speed up some surfaces.


> while I was thinking of something that.. hmm how to say it... like uhm 
> antialias, or 3d version of binary-tree 

You are thinking of something closer to lossy compression, throwing out 
low-amplitude variations. I believe you are talking about an oct-tree, 
each node is a cube divided into 8 sub-cubes...that could help reduce 
the memory requirements if you are willing to throw away information, 
which shouldn't be a problem for this. In some cases where there is a 
lot of variation in the gradient, it would require more memory...most of 
the voxels and a lot of node pointers. It would also make it even slower 
to find a particular voxel: you would have to descend the tree instead 
of just accessing an element of an array.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/


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From: Micha Riser
Subject: Re: ISO optimization
Date: 5 Aug 2002 14:35:27
Message: <3d4ec56e@news.povray.org>
Another approach instead of working with different max gradients is to use 
the second derivatives instead of the first one. So instead of the max 
gradient the max second derivative Cmax of the function has to be specified 
(is there a math expression for that? curvature?). Then, if you have the 
function evaluated at some point p0 with value v0 and approximated gradient 
g0 (which you can do by taking a second point as it is done in normal 
calculation) you place a polynom of order 2 which fits the point and the 
gradient at p0 and has the curvature Cmax. You know then that there is no 
root between p0 and the roots of the polynomial.

This will work well with many functions. Problems can arise with functions 
that are not differentiable. 

I have implemented a version that works with the second derivative for 
isosurfaces in my own raytracer (written in java though). If anybody wants 
I can send him/her the source code. 

- Micha

-- 
http://objects.povworld.org - the POV-Ray Objects Collection


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