Chel is a rendering engine for arbitrary 4-polytopes. It is possible to load objects via styl files, which contain the 4D object data for a given object. The rendering method is controlled by a system of "Render Packs". A render pack corresponds to a single rendering method, and is composed of a compute, vertex, and fragment shader, as well as a YAML file containing additional information about how the object should be rendered. It is written in C#, using OpenTK to interact with the GPU.
To install, clone the git repo and use dotnet build to build from source, the dependancies should be automatically downloaded. If not, the specific version is stored in the Refactor.csproj file.
To use, either run dotnet run from the command line, or run the executable produced by dotnet build. Paths to the specific render pack and object can be supplied as arguments
> Chel.exe <path/to/renderpack.yml> <path/to/object.styl>
> dotnet run <path/to/renderpack.yml> <path/to/object.styl>
Once open, the object can be interacted with in 3D using the mouse, and 4D using the keyboard.
Left-click and drag for XZ and YZ rotations, Right-click and drag for XY rotation. Use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
The Q,W,E,A,S,D are used to control rotation in 4D.
| Key | Plane of Rotation |
|---|---|
| Q | XW |
| W | YW |
| E | ZW |
| A | XY |
| S | XZ |
| D | YZ |
Hold Shift to reverse the direction of rotation, and press R to reset the 4D view.
Arbitrary inputs are handled by the bottom row of the keyboard: Z, X, V, B, N, M, and the , key. These correspond to the values of ComputeShaderUniforms and VertexFragmentShaderUniforms. Hold shift to reverse the input.
Additional render packs can be created using the format provided.
-
/Models/: Containsstylfiles that contain the object data. -
/Parse/: Contains theHyperObjectandHyperTetrahedronstructs, and the code for parsingstylfiles. -
/Render/: Contains the rendering code, and the Render Pack Parser. -
/RenderPacks/: Contains the render packYAMLfiles -
/Shaders/: Contains the shaders used by the render packs -
/generate_pointcloud.py: Contains code used to generate the test data for the point cloud render pack -
/Program.cs: Program Entry Point.
This software is distributed under the MIT License