[HN Gopher] Building a Mesh Using Spherical Embedding
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       Building a Mesh Using Spherical Embedding
        
       Author : CarpeQueso
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2025-01-31 13:07 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
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       | waynecochran wrote:
       | I wonder what percentage of 3D meshes used in practice (say in
       | video games, visual simulations, etc..) are topologically
       | equivalent to a sphere. No coffee cups allowed.
        
         | CarpeQueso wrote:
         | There are probably lots of weird shapes used in practice, but
         | the nice thing about game design is that you get to build the
         | mesh directly instead of making your best guess at what kind of
         | surface unconnected points ought to represent. Mapping to a
         | sphere is definitely pretty restrictive.
        
           | gcr wrote:
           | I'd imagine most are either planar or complex/undefined. Most
           | meshes in gamedev probably aren't even closed with a unique
           | inside/outside; just "pile of triangles".
        
             | genewitch wrote:
             | If this aids your argument, nearly All video game models
             | that I tried to convert to 3D printing STL files were non-
             | manifold.
             | 
             | I think this logically follows from your statement, and it
             | made fixing the stl files necessary otherwise the printer
             | would switch to imaginary coordinates halfway thru the
             | print and since the printer is mechanically restricted the
             | print does a good impression of an Escher painting.
        
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