Chris Thorne

floatingorigin.com

Many applications make use of some form of support for the parallel execution of tasks. Parallel execution and synchronisation can lead to more efficient sharing of computing resources. Tasks that execute for a short time, and separately from the main program, are well suited to such multitasking. The Unity game engine supports multitasking with co...

A class of software solutions to mitigate positional jitter, improve scale and enable optimisations, has been developed over the past 20 years. The methods, collectively named origin-centric techniques, were based on the concepts of origin-centred observation from position independent calculations. This conceptual formulation incorporated continuou...

Positional systems, such as games, need to continuously check the distance between objects and the player, or player camera, as the player moves and interacts. Some categories of distance-based decisions are: to change visibility of objects, level of detail, or to trigger an action. Such distance determinations may be performed thousands, or even m...

Positional systems, such as games, need to calculate the distance between objects and the player camera for many different reasons. Examples are: sensing proximity to a position, object or actor; controlling visibility of objects; to trigger an action based on distance travelled; to make a prediction, such as dead-reckoning; or to perform a calculat...

An aspect of the rotation floating origin technique offers some unique opportunities for high-level optimisations within applications-in World space-that are normally only available at a low level stage of the graphics pipeline. The technique fixes the orientation of the virtual camera to screen-facing. This aspect can be exploited to utilise optim...

The technique of rotation floating origin fixes the orientation of the virtual camera to screen-facing. This aspect offers some unique opportunities for high-level optimisations within applications-in World space-that are normally only available a very low level within the graphics pipeline. One of these optimisations is referred to as Z-culling or...

In the field of computer graphics, objects that turn to face the user viewpoint are called billboards. Billboards can be used for information purposes or to increase apparent scene complexity. The latter use is the focus for performance enhancement in this article. This article documents an experiment which compares a novel fast billboard algorithm...

Rotation floating origin is an origin-centric technique designed to optimise rotation and rendering of the interactive virtual view. This article describes interaction and rendering aspects related to the technique.

This document provides an alphabetical listing of terms used in Relative Computation theory and practice. Relative computation began as an approach to optimisation in the fields of computer graphics and simulation but is also generally applicable to any positional digital system. The application of the research, e.g. in techniques such as floating...

Positional jitter is a common source of error in positional computation. One form of positional jitter, distant relative jitter, is isolated in this experimented to better understand its behaviour and appearance during interactive movement. The aim is to enable developers to recognise the signature behaviour of this form of jitter, when other forms...

A class of software solutions to a wide-spread problem in computation, positional jitter, have been developed over the past 20 years. The solutions were collectively named origin-centric techniques. One such approach, floating origin, was adopted widely, particularly in the game industry. However it was implemented in a sub-optimal way because the...

Origin-centric techniques are a class of solutions to a widespread problem in computation: positional jitter. This article introduces a new origin-centric technique, progressive relative spaces, designed to solve a particular form of positional error, distant relative jitter, that occurs when working with objects organised in a hierarchical spatial...

Measuring and predicting error is important in computing, where accuracy and reliability are major concerns. A new way to more accurately measure error using a relative geometric formula was developed for handling of error on a more solid and effective scientific basis. The approach became a foundation for other benefits, such as improved scalabili...

Relative closure This note is the third in a series on relative computation building on earlier work and forming part of the foundation for relative computation. The following definition provides a definitive reference for future articles. A relative closure is a position independent algorithm with a bounded set of positional input. ...

The concept of position independence has lead to numerical optimisation advances in computer science, particularly for error reduction and improved scalability. The term was not simply and clearly defined in prior publications. We provide a concise definition. This and related articles are motivated by the desire to promulgate a better understandin...

Many functions based on positional parameters have a position independent aspect: there is no absolute place where the calculation must be done because the result depends only on the relative information between its parameters. Position independent functions can therefore be relocated and still produce the same theoretical result. One benefit of th...

These experiments demonstrate rendering variance when centred stationary navigation (continuous floating origin) is NOT USED. The variance applies even with limited or misconstrued versions of "floating origin" are used, such as the Unity wiki “floating origin” and algorithms called “origin shifting” or “origin rebasing”. Three experiments are pre...

Slides for Thorne, Chris. 2019. Healing Cracks in Cyberspace: towards best practice, OZCHI’19, Proceedings, December 2–5, 2019, Fremantle, WA, Australia, pp 491-502. Converted to movie file.

As we move firmly into the digital age, navigation through cyberspace has become an increasingly ubiquitous form of human-computer interaction. Whether the application we use is geospatial, flight simulation, virtual reality, augmented reality, simulation or game; we rely on sophisticated computation to paint data into views we can understand. 3D i...

Spatial positional jitter from within virtual spaces has received increasing attention in the fields of computer graphics and simulation. In contrast, in HCI research positional jitter from devices external to digital spaces, particularly of temporal origin, has been thoroughly researched. This article provides qualitative demonstration of interact...

Positional systems perform computation using position variables, such as time and location. Many applications fall under this umbrella to some degree and can suffer from accuracy problems referred to as positional jitter. A general algorithmic approach, called floating origin, has been developed to reduce positional jitter. Floating origin is part...

As we move firmly into the digital age, navigation through cyberspace has become an increasingly ubiquitous form of human-computer interaction. Whether the application we use is geospatial, flight simulation, virtual reality, augmented reality, simulation or game; we rely on sophisticated computation to paint data into views we can understand. 3D i...

Recent research has highlighted that today's engineering graduates need to have stronger interdisciplinary communication and teamwork skills as well as a broader perspective of the issues that concern their profession such as social, environmental and economic issues. We review a number of interdisciplinary project based case studies to determine w...

This thesis examined the idea of position independence of equations together with the optimising power of centering calculations and positional objects at the origin. The combined centred position independent concept became a single organising principle for optimising the fidelity and scalability of simulation pipelines and also formed the basis fo...

This document reviews current issues with the geospatial specification in relation to GeoOrigin and offers improvements for future versions. This document is offered in partial fulfillment of the requirements of X3DEarth NPS contract N00244-07-P-1192. We begin with a brief description of the geospatial nodes to provide necessary background for the...

The geospatial category of simulations is used to show how origin centric techniques can solve a number of accuracy related problems common to 3D computer graphics applications. Previous work identified how poor understanding of floating point related issues lead to performance, architectural and accuracy problems. This paper extends that work by i...

Large Virtual Worlds (VWs) are increasingly common in the computer graphics areas of simulation, games, geospatial or scientific visualisation. In such VWs, simulated motion of the viewpoint and other objects becomes jittery and lacking in realism when far from the world's origin. Shape and appearance of objects can also degenerate. Since these eff...

The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) ushered in a new era in computer graphics by providing the first international standard 3D format for the Web (web3D). Unfortunately, some who tried VRML applications found they did not work and naturally blamed the language. However, the problem often lay in the sensitivity to different client software...

In karate one does kata or prescribed movements. Throughout the kata you must maintain your mental and physical balance or center. This paper proposes centered motion for computer graphics where, as a viewpoint is moved the viewer's position within the viewing coordinate space stays at (0,0,0) and instead other objects are moved in reverse around t...

Each of the three currently available real time shading languages has limitations. The Microsoft HLSL (high level shading language) is Microsoft Windows specific. The NVIDIA Cg shading language is claimed to be platform independent, however our experimental ...

Virtual worlds including whole earth environments have been made since the beginning of VR. In 1998, Vice President Al Gore described a vision called the “Digital Earth" which led to a burst of activity. This subsided after the year 2000 when the political landscape and organizational structures changed. We postulate another reason for this downtur...

Virtual worlds including whole earth environments have been made since the beginning of VR. In 1998, Vice President Al Gore described a vision called the “Digital Earth" which led to a burst of activity. This subsided after the year 2000 when the political landscape and organizational structures changed. We postulate another reason for this downtur...

An Expert System for texture mapping.

Recent research has highlighted that today's engineering graduates need to have stronger interdisciplinary communication and teamwork skills as well as a broader perspective of the issues that concern their profession such as social, environmental and economic issues. We review a number of interdisciplinary project based case studies to determine w...