[vtk-developers] Mandelbulb challenge

David E DeMarle dave.demarle at kitware.com
Thu Jan 21 09:46:26 EST 2010


I suspect one might _render_ the implicit function directly with Manta
(http://mantawiki.sci.utah.edu/manta/index.php/Main_Page) assuming
there is an intersection/sampling function in Manta suitable for that
specific class of function.

If there is such a function, one could then choose either interactive
or really good looking (ie multiple samples per pixel, whitted
effects, global illumination etc), ray tracing engine parameters.

LANL has developed an interface between VTK and Manta, so you might
specify the function and manipulate it in VTK, then render the
geometry in Manta. You can find the interface in the
ParaView/Plugins/Manta source directory, even though it works fine
when compiled directly against VTK.

For efficiency you would probably want a new VTK/Manta mapper that
skips the polygonalization step, and sends the function parameters
directly to manta.

have fun!

David E DeMarle
Kitware, Inc.
R&D Engineer
28 Corporate Drive
Clifton Park, NY 12065-8662
Phone: 518-371-3971 x109



On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:45 AM, Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Will,
>
> Some early Siggraph work may be enlightening:
> Generation and display of geometric fractals in 3-D
> http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=801263
> and
> Ray tracing deterministic 3-D fractal
> http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=74333.74363&type=series
>
> I recall that they do on-the-fly rendering rather then generate a volume.
>
> Bill
>
> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 6:43 AM, Will Schroeder
> <will.schroeder at kitware.com> wrote:
>> Yesterday Jason Shepherd at Sandia posted a link to stunning visualizations
>> of an attempt to visualize the 3D Mandelbrot set
>> http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html#renders
>>
>> Does anybody in the community want to take a stab at adding this capability
>> to VTK? Somewhere out there are hidden geniuses just waiting for a challenge
>> like this, I can feel it :-)
>>
>> My initial, uninformed thoughts on this would be to approach it one of two
>> ways:
>> 1. Create an implicit function and then use vtkSampleFunction to sample it.
>> This would provide very quick and dirty initial results and enable us to get
>> out heads around the mathematics.
>> 2. Create a custom class to produce a 3D image dataset, and then render it
>> using one of the many rendering techniques in VTK. This would provide
>> greater flexibility in generating and defining data, including producing
>> coloration, etc.
>>
>> Of course if you're really good you'll do this using the GPU :-) Maybe
>> support streaming to a region, etc.
>>
>> I'd love to have this because, well it's really cool :-), but also as a test
>> case/data source for large data, streaming, HPC, volume rendering and so on.
>> If there is interest we'll create some wiki pages and kick the project off.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> --
>> William J. Schroeder, PhD
>> Kitware, Inc.
>> 28 Corporate Drive
>> Clifton Park, NY 12065
>> will.schroeder at kitware.com
>> http://www.kitware.com
>> (518) 881-4902
>>
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