rayshader
Creative
map shading and cartography
SHOW HN2018
How HN took it
3 positive, 7 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 6 critical, out of 16 comments about the project. Thread score -0.08.
Design: 1 for, 3 againstExecution: 0 for, 2 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstIdea: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Nice write-up and interesting project
From 2 comments
That's a cool project and a nice write up. I remember as a 13 yr old being fascinated by 3D software. I think I just wanted to create something photo-realistic with a computer. I…
osrec on HNlooks good. would love to see more !
zython on HN
Objections
Ray tracing shadows are misleading for topographic maps and the comparison is unfair to the competing slope-shading method
From 3 comments
I have a bit of a complaint. I've used something similar to the "derivative based model" (DBM) for 3D shading before, and tested them on moonscapes. The angle-to-brightness curve…
tabtab on HNI still have to conclude the Andes example as given is misleading. It strongly implies ray-tracing "fixes" the problems shown. A footnote alone can't fix that (or is the wrong…
tabtab on HNI have the same complaint. I couldn't think of a polite way to put it, so this won't be polite, but whenever someone compares their algorithm with a poor version of a competing…
civility on HN
Missing Lambert term in shading
From 1 comment
It looks to me like the original gradient based shading code is just wrong. Maybe there are numerical problems due to its frivolous use of trig functions, or more likely the way…
voidmain on HN
Shadow banding and odd gradients look unnatural
From 2 comments
I don't know about "glossy" (this is not my field) but I did feel the way that the shadows diffused (considering moving from the object casting the shadow to the shadows…
JKCalhoun on HNYour raytraced shadow maps have a bit of a "glossy" feel, it suggests that you don't use linear colorspace for rendering these. I think colormagick also needs additional options…
leni536 on HN
Requests
Port to a QGIS plugin
From 1 comment
This would be fantastic as a QGIS plugin, have you thought about applying to their grant program?
JorgeGT on HN
Use ambient occlusion for softer shading
From 1 comment
Neat project! I'm not sure if the author is familiar with ambient occlusion, but the method described here can be extended to generate ambient occlusion data which helps with a…
Remnant44 on HN
Speed up the algorithm
From 1 comment
I think the O(row * col * light_count * dist) algorithm could be optimized to run in O(row * col * light_count). The idea is, imagine the light is coming from the left, and our…
abirler on HN
Questions
Whether the QGIS grant program applies
From 2 comments
This would be fantastic as a QGIS plugin, have you thought about applying to their grant program?
JorgeGT on HNHere's a brief outline of the requirements: https://plugins.qgis.org/ they advertise a 2 weeks review time maximum.
JorgeGT on HN
Alternatives named
Derivative-based slope shading (DBM)
From 1 comment
I have a bit of a complaint. I've used something similar to the "derivative based model" (DBM) for 3D shading before, and tested them on moonscapes. The angle-to-brightness curve…
tabtab on HN
Blender and Yafray
From 1 comment
That's a cool project and a nice write up. I remember as a 13 yr old being fascinated by 3D software. I think I just wanted to create something photo-realistic with a computer. I…
osrec on HN
Screen-space ambient occlusion and parallax occlusion mapping
From 2 comments
My comment came from the observation that making sampled tracing of a depth buffer is similar to what (current, rasterizing) game engines do for ambient occlusion.…
alkonaut on HNIt's completely true. The term to google is "Parallax Occlusion Mapping," which was used for several extremely impressive (for the time) GPU demos in 2004. EDIT:…
jjoonathan on HN