On 1/26/2017 1:08 PM, clipka wrote:
 > Am 26.01.2017 um 19:51 schrieb William F Pokorny:
 >
 >> One of the places I've wondered if we might sneak a look at GPUs near
 >> term would be as one or more, new internal functions for use with
 >> isosurfaces. Specifically isosurfaces needing to evaluate a great many
 >> functions for each evaluation - something not practical today.
 >
 > If the "sub-functions", as I would like to call them, are different in
 > structure (or even if their common structure can't be easily identified
 > as such), I suspect that's not a scenario where a GPGPU can help much.
 >

It's certainly possible; there are frameworks out there (CudaDNN, CNTK, 
and TensorFlow all come to mind, because of the projects I've been 
working on) that all take scripted input and run the final function on 
the GPU.

I suspect the above frameworks have pre-defined shaders for various 
common functions, and merely pass the data between them based on your 
script. However, it would be entirely possible to compile iso functions 
into shader code (Cuda C or the equivalent in OpenCL) and let the driver 
load it onto the GPU for you.

But it wouldn't be worth it, unless you can solve the first problem I 
posted in my original post: generating a situation where you have a 
cache of at least 100 (preferably 200 or more) function calls.

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