The geometry module¶
The demosys.geometry
module currently provides some simple
functions to generate VAOs for simple things.
Examples:
from demosys import geometry
# Create a fullscreen quad for overing the entire screen
vao = geometry.quad_fs()
# Create a 1 x 1 quad on the xy plane
vao = geometry.quad_2f(with=1.0, height=1.0)
# Create a unit cube
vao = geometry.cube(1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
# Create a bounding box
vao = geometry.bbox()
# Create a sphere
vao = geometry.sphere(radius=0.5, sectors=32, rings=16)
# Random 10.000 random points in 3d
vao = geometry.points_random_3d(10_000)
Note
Improvements or suggestions can be made by through pull requests or issues on github.
See the geometry
reference for more info.
Scene/Mesh File Formats¶
The demosys.scene.loaders
currently support loading
wavefront obj files and gltf.
You can create your own scene loader by adding the loader
class to SCENE_LOADERS
.
SCENE_LOADERS = (
'demosys.scene.loaders.gltf.GLTF2',
'demosys.scene.loaders.wavefront.ObjLoader',
)
Generating Custom Geometry¶
To efficiently generate geometry in Python we must avoid as much memory
allocation as possible. If performance doesn’t matter, then take this
section lightly. Lbraries like numpy
can also be used to generate
geometry.
The naive way of generating geometry would probably look something like this:
import numpy
import moderngl
from pyrr import Vector3
def random_points(count):
points = []
for p in range(count):
# Let's pretend we calculated random values for x, y, z
points.append(Vector3([x, y, x]))
# Create VBO enforcing float32 values with numpy
points_data = numpy.array(points, dtype=numpy.float32)
vao = VAO("random_points", mode=moderngl.POINTS)
vao.buffer(points_data, 'f4', "in_position")
return vao
This works perfectly fine, but we allocate a new list for every iteration
and pyrr internally creates a numpy array. The points
list will also
have to dynamically expand. This gets exponentially more ugly as the count
value increases.
We move on to version 2:
def random_points(count):
# Pre-allocate a list containing zeros of length count * 3
points = [0] * count * 3
# Loop count times incrementing by 3 every frame
for p in range(0, count * 3, 3):
# Let's pretend we calculated random values for x, y, z
points[p] = x
points[p + 1] = y
points[p + 2] = z
points_data = numpy.array(points, dtype=numpy.float32)
This version is orders of magnitude faster because we don’t allocate memory in the loop. It has one glaring flaw. It’s not a very pleasant read even for such simple task, and it will not get any better if we add more complexity.
Let’s move on to version 3:
def random_points(count):
def generate():
for p in range(count):
# Let's pretend we calculated random values for x, y, z
yield x
yield y
yield z
points_data = numpy.fromiter(generate(), count=count * 3, dtype=numpy.float32)
Using generators in Python like this is much a cleaner way. We also take
advantage of numpy’s fromiter()
that basically slurps up all the
numbers we emit with yield into its internal buffers. By also telling
numpy what the final size of the buffer will be using the count
parameter, it will pre-allocate this not having to dynamically increase
its internal buffer.
Generators are extremely simple and powerful. If things get complex we can
easily split things up in several functions because Python’s yield from
can forward generators.
Imagine generating a single VBO with interleaved position, normal and uv data:
def generate_stuff(count):
# Returns a distorted position of x, y, z
def pos(x, y, z):
# Calculate..
yield x
yield y
yield x
def normal(x, y, z):
# Calculate
yield x
yield y
yield z
def uv(x, y, x):
# Calculate
yield u
yield v
def generate(count):
for i in range(count):
# resolve current x, y, z pos
yield from pos(x, y, z)
yield from normal(x, y, z)
yield from uv(x, y, z)
interleaved_data = numpy.fromiter(generate(), count=count * 8, dtype=numpy.float32)