Ellipsoid grid lines don't work well on flat ellipsoids

[emackey]

If one axis of an ellipsoid is too short relative to others, the grid lines fall apart on most cards.

Is there a good solution to this? Should we set a minimum axis ratio, or maybe fall back to non-derivative lines on such ellipsoids?

[emackey]

So pull #1067 offers a substantial improvement, but not a complete fix.

On the bright side, it looks like the new ellipsoidOutlineGeometry will work at any amount of flatness, at the expense of some of the raymarching goodness.

Possibly there could be logic someplace to look at the max/min ratio of ellipsoid radii and make an intelligent guess as to which to use? Would the server have to do this, looking ahead at radii over time, or could the dynamicScene layer figure this out on the fly?

[mramato]

I was under the impression that we would switch completely over to ellipsoidGeometry; since the ray-marched version doesn't support 2D/CV. If there's a good reason to keep both, we can definitely add logic in the Visualizer to determine which one to ultimately use. The visualizers are going to be completely refactored in the next month but we don't necessarily need to wait until then for that.

[emackey]

That could be OK.

[emackey]

Looks like GitHub auto-closed this issue since we mentioned it a number of times. It's still an issue.

[pjcozzi]

I was under the impression that we would switch completely over to ellipsoidGeometry; since the ray-marched version doesn't support 2D/CV. If there's a good reason to keep both, we can definitely add logic in the Visualizer to determine which one to ultimately use. The visualizers are going to be completely refactored in the next month but we don't necessarily need to wait until then for that.

What's the plan (or already done)? I'm OK with either, but interest in this is increasing.

[mramato]

In the dynamicScene-geometry branch, ellipsoid have been ported over to Geometry and Appearances (along with a bunch of other stuff). There's still a bit of work to be done before I open a PR for it, but it's close. I just need to carve out a couple of days to do it. I'm going to shoot for end of next week.

[pjcozzi]

Excellent!

[pjcozzi]

Can we close this?

[emackey]

Yep it's fixed now.