Fornjot

I'm working on removing the Shape data structure (#697), which is going to make the kernel much simpler, and thus all following work much easier. I already finished decoupling the validation infrastructure from Shape (#696), which is a necessary precondition, but also turned out to be a nice improvement in its own right.

I've started to rewrite the sweep algorithm (#723), which has been a thorn in my side for a while, and is now blocking further progress on removing Shape.

Sponsors

Fornjot is supported by @webtrax-oz, @lthiery, @Yatekii, @martindederer, @hobofan, @ahdinosaur, @thawkins, @bollian, @rozgo, and my other awesome sponsors. Thank you!

If you want Fornjot to be stable and sustainable long-term, please consider supporting me too.

End-user improvements

Improvements to Fornjot and its documentation that are visible to end-users.

• None this week. Busy working on the kernel!

Ecosystem improvements

Improvements to the Fornjot ecosystem that are relevant to developers who are building on top of Fornjot components.

fj-kernel

• Decouple validation infrastructure from Shape (#705, #706, #707, #709, #710, #711, #714, #715)
• Derive Copy for Vertex (#712)
• Make Anyhow a dev-dependency of fj-kernel (#713)
• Break triangulate's dependency on Shape (#716)
• Don't check uniqueness of edges during validation (#718)
• Relax builder API (#719)
• Add Curve::line_from_points (#721)

Internal Improvements

Improvements that are relevant to developers working on Fornjot itself.

• Update dependencies (#698, #699, #700, #701, #703, #704)
• Clean up Shape tests (#708)
• Clean up module structure within objects (#717)
• Make minor cleanups in approximation code (#720)
• Increase variation in test model (#722)

Issue of the Week

Fornjot uses wgpu-rs to display 3D graphics. This is a great library, and it supports all major desktop and mobile platforms, as well as browsers. However, wgpu-rs is also fairly low-level. If there were a higher-level library we could use, without limiting Fornjot's potential for portability, that could make development of the graphical aspects much easier going forward.

Enter rend3. It is built on top of wgpu-rs and makes a great impression overall, but I haven't had the time to take a closer look at it. If you're interested in 3D graphics code, why not look into #657 - Evaluate rend3?

Outlook

I hope to wrap up the rewrite of the sweep algorithm this week (#723), and then see what's missing to remove Shape (#697). Progress so far has been promising, so I'm optimistic.