Unlimited Detail Technology

[AphexDreamer]

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8386977075/its-a-scam

This guy might be trying to scam us but Voxels isn't a scam, it just needs work.

 

[qubit]

@Benetanegia

Storing all those terabytes of data on a hard disc isn't the only problem. It will also have to be loaded into graphics RAM and system RAM to be useful, so the problem is compounded many times over. Even if you can load just part of it, the amount will still be massive.

I'll give a fly squirrel frack when it shows up in a game. Until then, it does me nothing and it reeks of scam.

Yup, what he said.

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8386977075/its-a-scam

Nice find.

 

[Benetanegia]

@Benetanegia

Storing all those terabytes of data on a hard disc isn't the only problem. It will also have to be loaded into graphics RAM and system RAM to be useful, so the problem is compounded many times over. Even if you can load just part of it, the amount will still be massive.

Well I'm assuming some very intelligent streaming algorithm. Carmack said he was working on one for use with raytracing (similar to how Megatexure works) and that he thought he could make it work real soon and I have the tendency of not contradicting The man.

Anyway, the ammount needed for a complete game world is immense, but the one needed at any given time is not something unearthly. Like I said there's several engines out there and they are making it work on current hardware, needing between 2GB and 8 GB of RAM and 1 GB - 4GB of vRAM. It CAN work in a near future, but the reality is that there's no point unless they manage to do something with animation, storage size, etc.

Also I'm assuming that storage will increase both in capacity as well as in speed. I mean 100 TB HDD with current (or doubled) read speeds would simply not work, not for this, not for anything. There's several technologies on the horizon that promise much higher speeds that I hope will land soon. Maybe it's been just my impression, but there seems to be much more promise on faster memory tech than on higher density as of late. Maybe it's just my impression based on the fact that in the last decade it has been the absolute opposite.

 

[RejZoR]

Ideal would be to have RAM and storage combined. So there wouldn't be any separate RAM or HDD but one unified storage medium. A storage medium so fast it could replace RAM. This would eliminate any need to have super fast bus between storage mediums and RAM and processor. No need to load data anywhere as it would be already in memory all the time. But at the moment, no HDD or SSD technology is capable of that. Maybe when they make a hybrid SSD-RAM which could achieve speeds and latency of system RAM with persistant storage (non volatile) of SSD. But i don't think we'll see this anytime soon.

 

[Steve-007UK]

Seems the news about this is going around, Just went to this website http://www.reghardware.com/2011/08/03/game_graphics_could_be_10000_times_better/ and noticed this story, Just about to have a read before i goto work.

Aparently Euclideon plans to launch an SDK "some months from now", but will it really be the largest breakthrough since 3D graphics began?

id Software's John Carmack reckons there's no chance Euclideon will run on current-gen systems, but has the potential to "several years from now"

 

[Easy Rhino]

god not this again. people, stop being dumb. this will never work.

 

[qubit]

@animal007uk: the whoile thing's a scam, as myself and several others have said over and over on this thread.

This outfit actually claims an unqualified "unlimited" detail ie infinity, which is impossible. Not only that, but even on a mobile phone! Yeah, it's a scam to dupe "investors".

No wonder Easy's rolling his eyes at this.

 

[Steve-007UK]

I diden't say it was or wasen't a scam i was just saying the news it getting around everywere, I realy coulden't give a crap about this thing to be honest but there are lots of people who still want to read about this stuff so thats why i posted the link.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Yeah I mean if any progress of any kind is being made on this I'd like to know.

 

[qubit]

Yeah I mean if any progress of any kind is being made on this I'd like to know.

I reckon there must be progress and significant progress at that, or they wouldn't release another dodgy video.

That "progress" will be duping investors into parting with their money. Heck, I'm surprised that this outfit hasn't been nailed for fraud yet.

 

[NinkobEi]

probably vaporware.

 

[hellrazor]

I would really laugh if this all turned out to be real.

 

[Benetanegia]

I would really laugh if this all turned out to be real.

Do you think that a company that is claiming to be a breakthrough in technology would have a site like this?

http://www.euclideon.com/home.html

Compare it to Atomontage: http://www.atomontage.com/

Atomontage is far more advanced on making a complete engine suitable for games and they do not make any unrealistic claim as UD, because the pros and cons are very well known, especially the cons.

 

[Drone]

Mmmm and those atoms consist of .... tiny polygons?

Lol unless it's no quarks I'm not buying!

 

[erocker]

Lol unless it's no quarks I'm not buying!

There's nothing to buy. I'm looking forward to this thread dying down, then in a few months time some "journalist" will post some story about it and the discussion will repeat itself again. This is like watching paint dry.

 

[qubit]

Do you think that a company that is claiming to be a breakthrough in technology would have a site like this?

http://www.euclideon.com/home.html

Compare it to Atomontage: http://www.atomontage.com/

Atomontage is far more advanced on making a complete engine suitable for games and they do not make any unrealistic claim as UD, because the pros and cons are very well known, especially the cons.

Yeah, exactly. Talk about sparse and fake looking.

And what's with the scroll bar and the huge scrolling of the home page right off the top of the browser window! :shadedshu A moron would have to design a website like this.

 

[remixedcat]

I may have to contact the Euclideon people to make them a better site LOL.

 

[seronx]

The Unlimited Detail engine is claimed to function more like an advanced search algorithm rather than the standard 3D engine found throughout today's video games and 3d applications. Dell states that UD's processing approach is analogous to quickly accessing words by using the search function in a word document, or instantly finding thousands of results simply by typing in a query in Google™ . Unlimited Detail utilizes an advanced point cloud search algorithm to sift through all of the data and picks out only the points needed to render the current frame. In this method, UD can construct limitless worlds and render only the portions that the camera sees, taking into account factors such as the camera's perspective and location. The number of points returned is dependent on the current resolution of the screen – for example, a resolution of 1024x768 would return that many points, one for each pixel. Other factors in determining exactly what points are needed include the distance of the object from the camera, which objects are overlapping others, the scale of an object, and so forth, but all of this is efficiently handled by a method referred to as Mass Connected Processing. Mass Connected Processing allows the engine to process large amounts of data simultaneously and apply small changes to each part at the end of the cycle. “Its job is to find one atom for every pixel on the screen and not touch any of the others, it took us fifteen years to perfect the technique (it began as a hobby). What we have now works very well. We are able to display pictures with no geometry limitations at 24-30 fps 1024*600, one core with out any graphics hardware assistance, and we have only just begun to optimize so we are hoping to double that without any hardware assistance.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_surface_removal

This is how it gets past the memory blockade

It's not voxels as nothing has volume

5760x1080 resolution equals .75MBs of Point Cloud Data Possible on the screen everything else is a texture
.75MB of Point cloud data at the resolution at 900fps => 675MB/s

and now add the fact that textures are in this
675MB/s x 24 bit(3 Bytes per Atom) - 65536 bit(8 Kilobytes per Atom) => 15.8 GB/s to 42.2 TB/s

Hopefully they will get out of the mentality of CPU only and get the GPUs to work on this

 

[ctrain]

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/607677-unlimited-detail-back-again/

 

[bucketface]

if somehow they've managed to find a way around the massive storage requrements for voxel objects then this would be totally wicked sic supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
@qubit
the whole "unlimited detail" is marketing and should be taken as such to mean virtualy unlimited or the details looks as if it were unlimited. ofcourse it's limited.
on the other hand maybe it is just bs/patent troll, it's all just guess work at the moment. We'll probably be a little close to an answer in a few months when the sdk is supposed to be released.

 

[qubit]

if somehow they've managed to find a way around the massive storage requrements for voxel objects then this would be totally wicked sic supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
@qubit
the whole "unlimited detail" is marketing and should be taken as such to mean virtualy unlimited or the details looks as if it were unlimited. ofcourse it's limited.
on the other hand maybe it is just bs/patent troll, it's all just guess work at the moment. We'll probably be a little close to an answer in a few months when the sdk is supposed to be released.

It's a full-on scam, as myself and others have explained on this thread ad nauseum. They actually claim unlimited detail ie infinity... and even on a mobile phone! They never qualified their unlimited claim and just big it up for all its worth. An infinite amount of anything in this universe is impossible. If you don't realize that...

In the meantime, they have some iffy videos with unconvincing repeated-blocks graphics and a weird-sounding narrator who claims to be the CEO. They have a really simple, scammy-looking website and oh and they're perpetually "round the corner" from revealing all. Yeah, pull the other one.

Apparently this little joke has been going on since 2003. Kinda long enough for the big reveal, no? :shadedshu

 

[Benetanegia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_surface_removal

This is how it gets past the memory blockade

It's not voxels as nothing has volume

5760x1080 resolution equals .75MBs of Point Cloud Data Possible on the screen everything else is a texture
.75MB of Point cloud data at the resolution at 900fps => 675MB/s

and now add the fact that textures are in this
675MB/s x 24 bit(3 Bytes per Atom) - 65536 bit(8 Kilobytes per Atom) => 15.8 GB/s to 42.2 TB/s

Hopefully they will get out of the mentality of CPU only and get the GPUs to work on this

God. That only accounts for the voxels/points shown on screen. But ALL the points (relevant to a particular scene) have to be loaded to memory at some point. Believing otherwise is naive and disingenuous. Following the Google search example, it's as if I claim:

- I've searched the term "scam", which is 4 letters at 1 byte each, equals 4 bytes. And since the search algorithm only has to search the letters that I stablished... BAM! there it is, the whole internet is only 4 Bytes!

Back to reality, the CPU does not know which points have to be selected, nor does the HDD know which ones to send. Out of all the points/voxels*, at least some (based on locality, and actually quite a few according to their claim of "unlimited" detail) must be loaded to memory and the CPU needs the chance to compare their relative position according to the camera position distance, etc. THAT is the search algorithm, which is nothing new nor radically different from what everyone else does.

* Voxels or points is irrelevant, none really represent a volume mathematically. Voxels just represent a subdivision of the 3D space, but do not contain any volumetric data themselves, just a hierarchical address. At any rate voxels accupy a lot less than point cloud data. In fact most point cloud data scanned with 3d scanners is first converted to either voxels or polygons, because working with point cloud data is nearly imposible. Another reason that their claims are false and thus it's a scam.

From the mouth of Minecraft creator: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8423008802/but-notch-its-not-a-scam

Why it’s a scam:

* They pretend like they’re doing something new and unique, but in reality a lot of people are researching this. There are a lot of known draw-backs to doing this.
* They refuse to address the known flaws. They don’t show non-repeated architecture, they don’t show animation, they don’t show rotated geometry, and they don’t show dynamic lighting.
* They invent new terminology and use superlatives and plenty of unverifiable claims.
* They say it’s a “search algorithm”. That’s just semantics to confuse the issue. Sparse voxel octrees is a search algorithm to do very fast ray casting in a voxel space.
* They seem to be doing some very impressive voxel rendering stuff, which could absolutely be used to make very interesting games, but it’s not as great as they claim it is. The only reason I can see for them misrepresenting it this bad is that I assume they’re looking for funding and/or to get bought up.

If these guys were being honest with the drawbacks and weaknesses of their system, I’d be their biggest fan. As it is now, it’s almost like they’re trying NOT to be trustworthy.

All this said, voxels are amazing. So is raytracing and raycasting. As computers get more powerful, and storage gets faster and cheaper, we will see amazing things happen.

And a final word to the engineers who worked on this: Great job, I am impressed! But please tell your marketing department to stop lying.

 

[bucketface]

It's a full-on scam, as myself and others have explained on this thread ad nauseum. They actually claim unlimited detail ie infinity... and even on a mobile phone! They never qualified their unlimited claim and just big it up for all its worth. An infinite amount of anything in this universe is impossible. If you don't realize that...

In the meantime, they have some iffy videos with unconvincing repeated-blocks graphics and a weird-sounding narrator who claims to be the CEO. They have a really simple, scammy-looking website and oh and they're perpetually "round the corner" from revealing all. Yeah, pull the other one.

Apparently this little joke has been going on since 2003. Kinda long enough for the big reveal, no?

I've watched the videos aswell and they look like just about any other promo vid. Trying to garner interest and excitement with distorted facts about the product.
anyway all i'm saying is that unless you have access to their product you cannot say that it is absolutly a scam. you are welcome to your opinion ofcourse but it's just that until proven other wise and no you cannot prove, without a doubt, that it is a scam unless you somehow got access to thier product.
*i'm not defending this thing just saying that it may not necessarily be a scam. my stand is cautiously optimistic. who knows, they may just be able to pull a rabit out of the hat.

Isn't the CEO the same Dell that started DELL the company?
Narrator is Australian but yeah has a weird Aussie accent.

Also the universe itself is technically infinite... but thats not part of the discussion.

 

[scaminatrix]

Man, his accent sounds exactly the same as the voice I use when prank calling someone. Sounds like a p*sstake voice, like Lloyd Grossman. Or like Fonejacker.

 

[ivicagmc]

When you put it simply... Every point of space in real world caries information of 3 dimensions of space, and one dimension of time and matter of field that is in that point. Not much different in virtual world, since it is trying to duplicate the real world. In other to have more complex virtual world we need to store and process more data. There are tricks to do that more easily, like duplicating objects and that is exactly what they do in games... This looks like some slight advanced version of something like that if it is true.
Great thing would be if there could be an algorithm that could create world randomly in great detail, based on information that it has. You bye a game and every time you play it it is different...