Unlimited Detail in 3D Graphics [UPDATED]

[jorgerosa]

(Unlimited Detail Technology, aka UDT) Unlimited Power in 3D Graphics UPDATED !!!......
They claim they can do 3D Graphics in a completly outstanding new level.
Based in a entire new concept, that allows unlimited detail, and unlimited objects, etc, etc...
To achieve this, the way is to use "floating atoms" (point cloud data) insted of polygons, according to them...

• They have (AWESOME) videos about the new idea for 3D graphics is explained, here:
NEW VIDEOS: http://www.youtube.com/user/EuclideonOfficial
More stuff....
• Three (AWESOME) examples, based in "atoms", are here:
VIDEOS: http://www.youtube.com/user/AtomontageEngine
• More about this technique, and the Atomontage (voxel engine) (it has also an impressive 3D gallery), here:
(They say: "Most of the generators are currently simple non-optimized CPU-based single-thread implementations.")
ATOMONTAGE 3D Engine´s homepage: http://www.atomontage.com


REVIEWS:
• Many people say: "it´s the fraud of the year"
• Markus Persson, the creator of Minecraft, says: "It’s a scam!"
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8386977075/its-a-scam

WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS:
• For me it´s "unlimited scam power", of course!... But it´s mind-blowing indeed, and in a near future we will have graphics like that, for sure.
At least, was good to spend 10 minutes dreaming, looking to that videos... But that´s all!
Now, after spent 10 mind-blowing minutes, let me back to reality, and keep working with my loved oldie little IRRLICHT engine...

NOW, WHAT DO YOU THINK ?...

[Insomniacp]

its funny how they stole the video's from the one "engine" a few years ago that claimed the same thing You can tell by the logo in the corner on some of the clips. There was another post about that one here a while back.

I wouldn't say its impossible though in the future. Right now I can take my xbox kinect sensor and generate point cloud data on any object I want, use algorithms to remove unneeded points and then to build a triangle mesh out of it. The issue is that is a time consuming process and the triangle mesh is too detailed to use if the object is big (roughly 1 point every centimeter). Could do a bigger gap but then you lost precision and detail. Anyway one day we will be able to render just the points without filtering the data but that is a long way off.

It is a shame that some people may actually give them money because they are naive and don't know its a scam. Look at the address doesn't have you send the check to the company rather someone's name... should be first red flag.

EDIT: Makes me wonder if this is even legal... or if the "all controlling" US Gov will try to stop it. (I use all controlling very loosely and for comic reasons)

[jorgerosa]

its funny how they stole the video's from the one "engine" a few years ago that claimed the same thing You can tell by the logo in the corner on some of the clips.

Ahh! Good catch! I´ve missed that.

[Insomniacp]

yeah... kinda funny how people think its great when they don't even show off anything of value. For example when the truck thing was driving through the sand a proof would have been moving the camera into the tracks and seeing actual depth in the sand and seeing individual pieces of sand moving. Also the fact they used a camera to record the video is very humorous when you claim to run it in real time but are unable to record it on a computer .

[Radikalizm]

Protip: Whenever you encounter someone who claims you can get 'unlimited precision' (or any term with 'unlimited') with limited resources, like with a pc, you can be sure of the fact that they're lying

I've seen a couple of these unlimited detail videos, and nothing they show is in any way revolutionary or unique; pair that with the fact that they're not talking about some very obvious limitations and you've got yourself someone who's trying to scam money out of some naive investor.

[shadowslair]

I remember the old topic: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/forum/v ... ilit=cloud

Of course everything is fake. Otherwise it would have had enourmous advertisement campaign, announcing a revolutionary engine costing thousands of bucks. Not to mention that absolutely no matter what kind of algorithm they were using, they cannot render trillions, billlions etc. of pointcloud data on atom level on widespread home user pc-s. My pc runs out of ram when a model is subdivided to over 6 million vertices, and that happens on professional modelling programs, with very fat teams and professionals. Imagine a pointcloud of 100 million points, each defined by 3 floats = 12 bytes/each and check how much of memory it occupies. Now add colors and on for each "atom". Now try to do your next-gen optimisation algo for these clouds and finally send them to the poor gpu...

As I said in the old topic: Unlimited Power?! No, thanks, my pc`s power is still quite limited! (Dual P4 3Ghz, 3gb, HD5670 1gb)

[Alpha Omega]

If the engine allowed unlimited detail than the point cloud data type would have to be the size of 0 bytes. If the size of the data type is equal to zero bytes than nothing exists.

*EDIT*

However, there is an easy way to maximize performance using the idea of a point cloud data type.

Theory

An 8 byte integer (64 bits) can hold values from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. Now lets count how much information we can hold if the data type is disguised as an 8 byte integer...

9,2,2,3,3,7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8 x 2 = 38 unique values from 0-9 (19 each side of the negative).

If we make the world's smallest increment equal to 1 (a change from 9223372036854775806 to 9223372036854775807 or from 0000000000000000001 to 0000000000000000002), then the world could consist of 18446744073709551615 units spread in a line touching each other. If the point type is a cube with all sides equal to one than we can express the the location of one point with 8 bytes.

If we only use 11 digits (or 99,999,999,999) than we use the other 8 points to express additional information like multiple locations of various point clouds.

However if we used the 38 unique values by separating the 8 byte integer like a string we can express the many location's with one 8 byte integer. This idea could provide efficient data transfer by grouping large amounts of point clouds into one 8 byte integer. For instance. You have a master point cloud with a defined location and then send all other point cloud's location in reference to the known location.

If we had a 128 bit integer or higher we could store more data in less space by extracting the data from the n-th bit integer.

[Lonesome Ducky]

Your method seems a complete and utter waste considering that you can express voxels with 1 bit. Set up a cube divided into a certain amount according to the size of the model, and create an array of bits with each one saying whether there is a voxel in the indexed position or not (the bit's place in the array gives its position). This of course does not cover for color or anything else, albeit. But even with a single bit to express the existence of a voxel, you can't create many large objects at any kind of good looking resolution. A simple 1024x1024x1024 object (decidely not hi-res) would be 1/8th of a gigabyte. Just for a single object, without color or any other property. To create a unique world with a resolution capable of even competing with polygons would take magnitudes more memory than computers nowadays have. These systems get around it by replicating the data, but that creates a boring, flat world. In my opinion, polygons still are the future. Voxels takes huge amounts more memory to express the same thing that a triangle does without looking like the object is made of legos. And, by the time that systems become powerful enough to support voxels and these kind of levels, polygons will be even better!

[Lil Margin]

The dude talks like a retard lol and for the technologies, if they can make it happen...sweet

[Alpha Omega]

Your method seems a complete and utter waste considering that you can express voxels with 1 bit. Set up a cube divided into a certain amount according to the size of the model, and create an array of bits with each one saying whether there is a voxel in the indexed position or not (the bit's place in the array gives its position). This of course does not cover for color or anything else, albeit. But even with a single bit to express the existence of a voxel, you can't create many large objects at any kind of good looking resolution. A simple 1024x1024x1024 object (decidely not hi-res) would be 1/8th of a gigabyte. Just for a single object, without color or any other property. To create a unique world with a resolution capable of even competing with polygons would take magnitudes more memory than computers nowadays have. These systems get around it by replicating the data, but that creates a boring, flat world. In my opinion, polygons still are the future. Voxels takes huge amounts more memory to express the same thing that a triangle does without looking like the object is made of legos. And, by the time that systems become powerful enough to support voxels and these kind of levels, polygons will be even better!

Well with your method you express a voxel with 1 byte. But if you use a high bit integer and represent say 100 point clouds with 8 bytes, then it is incredibly more efficient. Thus allowing to to reach high resolution with a small amount of data.

[Lonesome Ducky]

Actually, it's one bit, not one byte. I've read through yours and still can't make much sense of it, though. I'm pretty sure your logic is off somewhere, as there's no way you can represent 100 point clouds with 8 bytes. And if you can, you could easily convert that to some kind of compression scheme that would easily out do any of them to date, which I sincerely doubt possible coming from a hobby programmer (I'm guessing?).

[Alpha Omega]

The programming is easy. Just represent the data stored in the integer as a string during run time and extract more data than is explicitly stated in the single integer. You use the geometrical consideration that any point in real space can be represented by an integer and you can come up with any whacky algorithm to store more data in an integer than you could imagine. Here's another example.

You can exploit the fact that the value in the integer means nothing alone but replicating it into an integrated system to comprise the existance of that said system. You could make a nth dimensional array with your single integer point.

9,2,2,3,3,7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,(8)
2,2,3,3,7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8,(9)
2,3,3,7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8,9,(2)
3,3,7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8,9,2,(2)
3,7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8,9,2,2,(3)
7,2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8,9,2,2,3,(3)
2,0,3,6,8,5,4,7,7,5,8,0,8,9,2,2,3,3,(7)
.
..
...
(Offsetting the integer by one)
You can then take the vertical rows as new integers 1+19+19 = 39 total with one simple change.

Coding the system to pick a value that makes everything work and an algorithm that would specify all the aspects of the system might not be easy but who knows until you try.

[hybrid]

Well, the logic suits the original topic's one I guess. If you really want to store information in (arbitrary) number layout, you'll easily give off many bits in your number due to unused ranges. What you basically do is to reserve not a block of bits, but designate certain patterns. This makes it just a little more complicated to work with the numbers, but you won't store more information. If you want to convince us, please give a full encoding for two 4-bit numbers and show us that you encode (arbitrarily chosen!) colors for more or at least 256 places.

[jorgerosa]

More news!...

"Digital Foundry vs. Unlimited Detail", posted at "August 6th, 2011".
Interesting... (3 pages to read) --> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... ted-detail

Also, found this picture, in that article comments:

Just a note, i can´t see a PC showing the 3D demo on TV (in real time)... only a videotape (or a dvdplayer or whatever)

[shadowslair]