[HN Gopher] A WebGPU implementation of Augmented Vertex Block De...
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A WebGPU implementation of Augmented Vertex Block Descent
Author : juretriglav
Score : 115 points
Date : 2026-04-09 12:01 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| Ciantic wrote:
| AVBD also has this page
| https://graphics.cs.utah.edu/research/projects/avbd/ I don't know
| how this implementation differs from the one they are demoing but
| this one by Jure Triglav feels much smoother to me.
| juretriglav wrote:
| The excellent 3D demo on that page is CPU based, serial.
| zokier wrote:
| Do you see "Offset Geometric Contact" paper fitting into this
| project somehow?
| https://graphics.cs.utah.edu/research/projects/ogc/
| juretriglav wrote:
| I actually have an implementation of that too, since I was
| fascinated by the twisting cloth example, but need to figure
| out how best to incorporate it, or if it's better in a
| standalone experiment.
| mjmdavis wrote:
| This is really awesome. Great work.
|
| I aspire to build cool stuff like this in WebGPU.
|
| Very excited for the future of the web.
| juretriglav wrote:
| Thanks! Never been easier to start than right now. This physics
| engine is a bit opaque in terms of how it works, but I recently
| wrote about a global illumination approach that uses surfels -
| I break it down into small manageable pieces, with plenty of
| interactive visualizations, and it's also in WebGPU! If you
| have some time, maybe take a look at that and start taking it
| apart: https://juretriglav.si/surfel-based-global-illumination-
| on-t...
| Stevvo wrote:
| It can definitely be achieved with Claude. Even with no
| experience in graphics progammming, I've been able to replicate
| results of several papers in related to fluid simulation.
| the-golden-one wrote:
| Why do all physics engines still look so floaty?
| jackling wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what you mean? It could be a matter of
| perspective, For a stack of blocks, each 1 meters high, the
| stack can get quite high and your expectations on how it should
| look like IRL might not be correct, due to never experience a
| large tower of blocks being knocked over at that vantage point.
| Especially if the mass of the objects are strange (super light
| for their size or super heavy).
|
| I know in older games, the recommendation was to keep gravity
| low (~6 m/s^2 iirc) to help with simulation stability and make
| things look better, that might contribute to your idea of
| things being floaty.
|
| I don't find the examples in the git repo to be especially
| floaty, but I work with a lot of simulators so I might just be
| used to it.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I'm super frustrated by the state of 3D on web right now as an
| app developer. I wish we just had Vulkan on the web ...
|
| Right now your options are basically having a GLES renderer that
| you can restrict to WebGL2 (so no compute shaders, etc. and other
| things that make desktop OpenGL acceptable for writing a modern
| renderer) or having to abstract over Vulkan/WebGPU yourself,
| which are similar but different enough to increase your code
| complexity considerably.
|
| There's abstractions like wgpu and bgfx you can commit to, and of
| course you can just use game engine middleware and have it all
| done for you, but overall things fall short of just being able to
| "write once, run anywhere" a renderer, sadly.
| modeless wrote:
| > your options are basically having a GLES renderer that you
| can restrict to WebGL2 (so no compute shaders, etc. and other
| things that make desktop OpenGL acceptable for writing a modern
| renderer) or having to abstract over Vulkan/WebGPU yourself
|
| I don't understand this complaint. What's worse about using
| WebGPU over using GLES? Seems like a strict improvement. You
| can use WebGPU anywhere, you're not required to "abstract" over
| Vulkan. If you're talking about using it outside of the web,
| you just choose wgpu or Dawn as your implementation, it's the
| same API and even the same implementation as you'd get in a
| browser.
| adfm wrote:
| What's holding it back? Is there something to be done to make
| it less frustrating? What would make "The Hardware-Accelerated
| Web" a breeze to use for developers?
| mellinoe wrote:
| Other than the fact that WebGPU sucks compared to modern Vulkan
| + extensions, there's nothing stopping you from just using
| webgpu even in a native-only project, with no further
| abstraction
| jackling wrote:
| Awesome work, what always prevents me from implementing more
| solvers is the amount of math required. While the implementation
| always seems simple, understanding the different optimization
| strategies for each solver gets confusing.
|
| It's really impressive that the author was able to implement
| rendering papers and physics sim papers with such regularity. It
| really is a feat. Makes me curious to see what their background
| is.
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