NDT is a hyper-dimensional ray-tracer. Just like any normal ray-tracer ndt produces images by tracing the path of light rays from an observer to objects and light sources. However unlike normal ray-tracers, all of the vectors used to represent light rays can have an arbitrary number of dimension. This allows for direct rendering of scenes that have more than just three spacial dimensions.
Packages for these dependancies should exist for most Linux distributions and are available via macports on macOS.
In Debian Linux:
$ sudo apt-get install cmake libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libyaml-dev libmpich-dev
In macOS using macports:
$ sudo port install cmake jpeg libpng libyaml mpich-clang
Build from source with cmake:
$ git clone https://github.com/doing-science-to-stuff/ndt.git
$ cd ndt
$ cmake .
$ make
Build from source without cmake:
$ cd ndt
$ make -f Makefile.unix
Note: If not all dependencies are met, manual editing of common.mk will be needed.
$ ./ndt -f 1
A scene consists of a camera, a set of objects and a set of lights. There are two ways to create a scene, the C API or a YAML file.
To create a custom scene using the C API, start by making a copy of empty.c
in the scenes directory.
$ cd scenes
$ cp empty.c custom.c
Next, open custom.c (or whatever you called it) in a text editor or IDE.
There are three functions defined in this file.
The first function scene_frames is optional and returns the number of frames
to be rendered, if the scene describes multiple frames, (e.g., an animation).
int scene_frames(int dimensions, char *config);
Parameters:
-u flag.Returns:
-f
command-line option.The second function scene_setup is required, and does all of the work of configuring a scene.
Near the top of scene_setup there must a call to scene_init which provides
a name for the scene as well as the number of dimensions that seen will
contain.
Change the name in the `scene_setup call from “empty” to “custom”.
This will cause all images created by the custom scene to be placed in a newly
created “custom” subdirectory under the “images” directory.
int scene_setup(scene *scn, int dimensions, int frame, int frames, char *config);
The required function populates a scene structure with the camera, objects and lighting.
Parameters:
-u flag.Returns:
A third function scene_cleanup is optional, but provides means to cleanup
any memory or other persistent resources that a scene might use to maintain
state between frames.
int scene_cleanup();
The scene_cleanup function should free any additional persistent memory or
other resources that the scene setup function may have allocated to maintain
inter-frame state.
This function will only be called once, after all frames have been rendered.
If the scene doesn’t allocate any persistent resources, this function can
be omitted.
Returns:
All positions and directions are represented using a n-dimensions vector structure vectNd.
Before a vectNd can be used, it first must be initialized with vectNd_alloc or vectNd_calloc
(e.g., vectNd_alloc(&v, 5) allocates a 5-dimensional vector).
and when no longer needed, should always be freed with vectNd_free.
The easiest way to set a vector is the vectNd_setStr method.
vectNd_setStr takes a pointer to the vector and a string representation of
the vector (e.g., vectNd_setStr(&v, “1,2,3,4”), sets v to <1,2,3,4>).
Additionally vectNd_set can be used to modify individual elements of the
vector, (e.g., vectNd_set(&v, 0, 7) sets the first element of v to 7).
Each scene must have a camera that defines perspective from which the scene will be viewed.
A camera must first be allocated and initialized:
camera_alloc(&scn->cam, dimensions);
camera_reset(&scn->cam);
Once the camera is initialized, it can be places into the scene using the camera_set_aim function.
The camera_set_aim function is passed five parameters.
This first is a pointer to the camera to be aimed.
The second is a pointer to a vector from the origin to the point the scene
will be viewed from.
The third is a pointer to a vector from the origin to the point that will be
centered in the rendered image.
The fourth is an optional pointer to a vector (NULL if omitted), that gives
a vector that should point toward the top of the rendered image.
The fifth is a double that indicates a rotation (in radians) parallel to the
image plane to be applied before the camera is aimed.
In most cases, this should be zero.
vectNd_setStr(&viewPoint,"60,0,0,0");
vectNd_setStr(&viewTarget,"0,0,0,0");
vectNd_set(&up_vect,1,10); /* 0,10,0,0... */
camera_set_aim(&scn->cam, &viewPoint, &viewTarget, &up_vect, 0);
In order for anything to be visible in a scene, light sources are needed to illuminate the objects. Each scene contains a set of light structures that provide illumination.
Make a call to scene_alloc_light to add a light to a scene.
This function takes as parameters a pointer to the scene as well as a pointer
to a light pointer (e.g., scene_alloc_light(scn,&lgt), where lgt is of type
light\*).
Once a light has been added to the scene it needs to be configured. There are secveral types of lights that each have different configuration requirements.
The simplest type of light is ambient light.
To configure an ambient light, set the type to LIGHT_AMBIENT, (e.g., lgt->type = LIGHT_AMBIENT).
Then to configure the color/intensity of the ambient light, set the red, green, and blue fields to a value between 0.0 and 1.0.
light *lgt=NULL;
scene_alloc_light(scn,&lgt);
lgt->type = LIGHT_AMBIENT;
lgt->red = 0.5;
lgt->green = 0.5;
lgt->blue = 0.5;
Another, more complex light is a point light.
To configure a point light, set the type to LIGHT_POINT, (e.g., lgt->type = LIGHT_POINT).
Unlike ambient light, a point light has a position which is set by allocating and setting the pos field of the light structure.
Then the red, green, and blue fields give the intensity of the light in
each color channel.
Due to how light intensity falls off with distance, it is often necessary to
set the intensity of position based lighting to values in the hundreds, thousands, or more,
depending on the distance.
light *lgt=NULL;
scene_alloc_light(scn,&lgt);
lgt->type = LIGHT_POINT;
vectNd_calloc(&lgt->pos,dimensions);
vectNd_setStr(&lgt->pos,"0,40,0,-40");
lgt->red = 300;
lgt->green = 300;
lgt->blue = 300;
Additional types of lighting are available, but these two should be enough to get started.
Many types of object primitives are available in ndt and are identified by a type string.
A new object is added to the scene by calling scene_alloc_object.
The parameters for scene_alloc_object are a pointer to the scene,cw
the number of dimensions,
a pointer to a pointer to an object,
and a string indicating the type of object being created.
Objects in ndt are defined as sets of positions, directions, sizes (doubles), flags (integers), and other objects.
Once an object is allocated, elements are added to the appropriate sets using
a set of functions.
Each such function takes as its first parameter a pointer to the object, and
the value being added as a second parameter.
Positions are added with the object_add_pos function, directions with
object_add_dir, sizes with object_add_size, flags (integers) with
object_add_flag, and objects with object_add_obj.
When adding vectors or objects, a pointer is used, not the actual value.
For example, to add sphere to a 4-dimensional custom scene:
object *obj = NULL;
scene_alloc_object(scn, 4, &obj, "sphere");
vectNd center;
vectNd_calloc(¢er, 4);
vectNd_setStr(¢er, "0,5,0,0"); /* centered at <0,5,0,0> */
object_add_pos(obj, ¢er);
object_add_size(obj, 5.0); /* radius of 5 */
/* set color */
obj->red = 0.8;
obj->green = 0.1;
obj->blue = 0.1;
/* set reflectivity */
obj->red_r = 0.2;
obj->green_r = 0.2;
obj->blue_r = 0.2;
Note: In general, the dimensions variable should be used whenever the number of dimensions is needed.
Not all types of objects require elements in each set.
The number of elements required in each set can depend on the number of
dimensions.
Each object type provides a functions (params) that provides the number of
each type of element needed to fully describe an object.
Once custom.c has been modified, it needs to be compiled into a shared object which can be loaded by ndt at runtime.
The make file in the scenes directory should do this automatically when make
is run in either the scenes directory or the top level ndt directory.
$ cd ..
$ cmake .
$ make
To actually render a scene, ndt needs to be told, using the -s options, to load the shared object
that contains the scene description.
The -d option indicates that the scene should be rendered using 4-dimensions.
$ ./ndt -s scenes/custom.so -d 4
If the custom scene needs any additional configuration information passed into
it, the -u option can be used.
$ ./ndt -s scenes/custom.so -u 'configuration string'
To create a custom scene using a YAML file, start by making a copy of empty.yaml in the scenes directory.
$ cd scenes
$ cp empty.yaml custom.yaml
Next, open custom.yaml (or whatever you called it) in a text editor.
It should look like this:
---
scene: empty
dimensions: 4
camera:
viewPoint: [60, 0, 0, 0]
viewTarget: [0, 0, 0, 0]
up: [0, 10, 0, 0]
lights:
- type: LIGHT_AMBIENT
color: {red: 0.5, green: 0.5, blue: 0.5}
- type: LIGHT_POINT
color: {red: 300, green: 300, blue: 300}
pos: [0, 40, 0, -40]
objects:
- type: hplane
dimensions: 4
material:
color: {red: 0.8, green: 0.8, blue: 0.8}
reflectivity: {red: 0.5, green: 0.5, blue: 0.5}
positions:
- [0, -20, 0, 0]
directions:
- [0, 1, 0, 0]
The second and third line specify the name of the scene as well as the number of dimensions in the scene. Change the scene name on the second line from “empty” to “custom”. This will cause all images created by the custom scene to be placed in a newly created “custom” subdirectory under the “images” directory.
All positions and directions are represented using a n-dimensions vectors.
In YAML an n-dimensional vector is a sequence of double values, (e.g., [60, 0, 0, 0] is the 4-dimensional vector <60,0,0,0>).
Each scene must have a camera that defines perspective from which the scene will be viewed.
A camera is described in a map named camera.
camera:
viewPoint: [60, 0, 0, 0]
viewTarget: [0, 0, 0, 0]
up: [0, 10, 0, 0]
Fields:
viewPoint - The point from which the scene will be viewed.viewTarget - The point which should appear at at the center of the screen.up - An optional vector which would point up in the final image.rotation - An optional double which specified a rotation (in radians) applied to the camera.In order for anything to be visible in a scene, light sources are needed to illuminate the objects. Each scene contains a set of light structures that provide illumination.
Lights are described in a sequence named lights where each entry is a map
with multiple fields which depends on the type of the light.
lights:
- type: LIGHT_AMBIENT
color: {red: 0.5, green: 0.5, blue: 0.5}
- type: LIGHT_POINT
color: {red: 300, green: 300, blue: 300}
pos: [0, 40, 0, -40]
This describes two lights. The first is ambient light that is applied evently to all objects. The color/intensity of the ambient light, set the red, green, and blue fields to a value between 0.0 and 1.0. The second is a point light source, which has a position and can cast shadows. Due to how light intensity falls off with distance, it is often necessary to set the intensity of position based lighting to values in the hundreds, thousands, or more, depending on the distance.
Many types of object primitives are available in ndt and are identified by a type string.
Objects are described in a sequence named objects, where each entry is a map
with multiple fields which depends on the type of the object.
In the “empty” scene there is actually one object.
- type: hplane
dimensions: 4
material:
color: {red: 0.8, green: 0.8, blue: 0.8}
reflectivity: {red: 0.5, green: 0.5, blue: 0.5}
positions:
- [0, -20, 0, 0]
directions:
- [0, 1, 0, 0]
Fields:
type - Specifies the type of object.dimensions - Number of dimensions for objects (should always match the dimensions in the scene).materal - A map that provides color and other visual properties of the object.positions - A sequence of vectors that give the location of the object (e.g. center of a sphere).directions - A sequence of vectors that give non-location base directions (e.g., normal vectors for a surface).sizes - A sequence of doubles that give magnitudes the objects might need (e.g., the radius of a sphere).flags - A sequence of integers that provide any discrete values the objects needs.To add a sphere to the custom scene, insert the following snippet into the objects section:
- type: sphere
dimensions: 4
material:
color: {red: 0.8, green: 0.1, blue: 0.1}
reflectivity: {red: 0.2, green: 0.2, blue: 0.2}
positions:
- [0, 5, 0, 0]
sizes:
- 5.0
To render the custom scene, a special yaml scene, specified with -s options, is used and the yaml file is
passed as a custom parameter, passed with the -u option.
The -d option indicates that the scene should be rendered using 4-dimensions.
$ ./ndt -s scenes/yaml.so -u scenes/custom.yaml -d 4