4 ms·

> we find that the technology has not been widely adopted in rendering engines so far That is funny considering that Vulkan has added support for mesh shading

> we find that the technology has not been widely adopted in rendering engines so far That is funny considering that Vulkan has added support for mesh shading roughly a year ago [1]. And, if you take a look at the members list of the Khronos group, you will find that AMD is listed in the top category [2] (what ever Ikea is doing there). [1]: https://www.khronos.org/blog/mesh-shading-for-vulkan https://www.khronos.org/blog/mesh-shading-for-vulkan [2]: https://www.khronos.org/members/list https://www.khronos.org/members/list

SiempreViernes 3y ago
IKEA wants to render a lot of its product illustrations instead of having huge photo studios, that's probably why they are active in computer graphics.
- badgersnake 3y ago
  Yep, they want to use VR and AR to sell furniture. I’ve heard far worse metaverse ideas than that.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Someone saw the scene from Fight Club and thought it was a good idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCo-ZlznCa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCo-ZlznCa4
  - Arrath 3y ago
    Helpful to layout my living room without busting out the measuring tape and making a scaled model complete with furniture footprints to move around.
- seiferteric 3y ago
  It's cheaper to create a 3D model of every product than to just take a picture of it?
  - SiempreViernes 3y ago
    An older video covering all their use of 3d some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJFlslL1wFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJFlslL1wFI The simple answer that you can infer from the video is that they make very high quality models for the design stage, which is definitely cheaper than making prototypes in all plausible material combinations. Then you can use those models for the simple product pictures too, and packing a 3d model with generic clothes is probably faster than having a prop department do it.
  - flumpcakes 3y ago
    The 3D model probably already exists because it was designed in CAD. They probably have custom renderers for rendering the flat/cartoon illustrations for the assembly instructions, and PBR renders for rendering realistic views. Grab a bunch of of these resources and put them in a box and you have living room design without having to manufacture, assemble, light, and shoot it in the real world.
  - V-eHGsd_ 3y ago
    honestly they probably have the 3d model made already as part of the design process. eta: ope, I see someone beat me to the same comment.
  - follower 3y ago
    To expand on the sibling answer(s) to your question, there was a talk at the most recent Blender conference related to the topic of product visualisation which I found an enjoyable watch: * "Multiverse of madness - how we render millions of doors": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEVncxtmxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEVncxtmxg Product visualisation seems to be a bit of a recurring theme for Blender talks over at least the past couple of years.
    - ToJans 3y ago
      A little bit off topic, but I think he was using the wrong solution here. He could have solved most of his issues by switching to a 3d configurator. I have built a custom threejs engine over the last decade that allows you to declaratively define materials, texture, repeating geometry, ... In a few lines of code. It has primitives like flexible grids, cloning, CSG operations etc. I currently use it mostly for outdoor living structures, but implementing doors and/or floors for this would be trivial. If you'd do this using my engine, the biggest thing left would be gathering the requirements and conventions... So I'd build a configurator for door configurators that allows suppliers to easily create their own configurators... In fact, I'm doing this right now for terrace roofs/sun rooms. Turtles all the way down...
kapperchino 3y ago
Alan wake 2 pretty much requires it too
pjmlp 3y ago
So far they have only been having good support on the engines targeting DirectX 12 Ultimate, as usual Khronos APIs keep getting later to the party. IKEA most likely cares about WebGL and WebGPU, which in any case is irrelvant for Mesh Shaders as they are decades away to arrive in the browsers if past performance is any indication of Web 3D adopting native 3D features.
- hajile 3y ago
  The big issue with adding features was mostly security (as I understand it). Then they realized that they were never going to achieve good performance with WebGL and Apple proposed porting Metal to the web as webGPU. There doesn't seem to be anything inherently insecure about mesh shaders and they now have working examples in both Vulkan and Metal, so I'd expect them to show up sooner rather than later.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    From the same group of folks that refused to add compute shaders from OpenGL ES, throwing Intel's work into the garbage, forcing a complete application rewrite to use them on the Web.
RetpolineDrama 3y ago
Vulkan only getting a mesh shader API a year ago when Nvidia shipped hardware in 2018 is a joke. I want Vulkan to be great, but it's painfully obvious it's behind.
- samus 3y ago
  Khronos is inherently unable to be ahead since it is a consortium of vendors with stakes in computer graphics. Khronos APIs are standardizations and/or abstractions on top of the platform-specific APIs, and new APIs and features usually start out as vendor extensions. They get standardized only when they get stabilized and adopted by other vendors. This is exactly what happened with mesh shaders - nVidia shipped the first hardware, but the extensions could rightfully not be uplifted to a standard API before other vendors also delivered implementations, as that could inconvenience their efforts.
  - ladyanita22 3y ago
    Vendor-specific extensions exist.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      They do indeed, Vulkan is getting them at higher pace than OpenGL, I hope there is some sauce for that spaghetti. https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listextensions.php https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listextensions.php
    - samus 3y ago
      Yes, and a lot of them introduce features that only later get later standardized into core extensions. Some of them remain proprietary, but it's still useful to have them in Vulkan so that they can be used in special circumstances.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Don't hold your breath regarding Direct Storage like capabilities, or work graphs. It has been the same following DirectX lead, from GPU vendors collaboration with Microsoft, and extensions spaghetti as OpenGL. Additionally it seems GLSL is stagnant, and from 2023's panel the suggestion was to adopt HLSL instead as there is no budget for language research.
wlesieutre 3y ago
Nearly 10 years ago Ikea was rendering 75% of their product images, I'm sure it's even higher by now http://web.archive.org/web/20140627040243/http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/building_3d_with_ikea http://web.archive.org/web/20140627040243/http://www.cgsocie... Also, RIP CGSociety. Just went looking for that article and found they shut down earlier this month.
- Zetobal 3y ago
  It's 100% for the cutouts and 80% for the "emotional" motifs. We still shoot but mainly for images with human interactions.

SiempreViernes 3y ago

IKEA wants to render a lot of its product illustrations instead of having huge photo studios, that's probably why they are active in computer graphics.

badgersnake 3y ago
Yep, they want to use VR and AR to sell furniture. I’ve heard far worse metaverse ideas than that.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Someone saw the scene from Fight Club and thought it was a good idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCo-ZlznCa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCo-ZlznCa4
- Arrath 3y ago
  Helpful to layout my living room without busting out the measuring tape and making a scaled model complete with furniture footprints to move around.
seiferteric 3y ago
It's cheaper to create a 3D model of every product than to just take a picture of it?
- SiempreViernes 3y ago
  An older video covering all their use of 3d some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJFlslL1wFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJFlslL1wFI The simple answer that you can infer from the video is that they make very high quality models for the design stage, which is definitely cheaper than making prototypes in all plausible material combinations. Then you can use those models for the simple product pictures too, and packing a 3d model with generic clothes is probably faster than having a prop department do it.
- flumpcakes 3y ago
  The 3D model probably already exists because it was designed in CAD. They probably have custom renderers for rendering the flat/cartoon illustrations for the assembly instructions, and PBR renders for rendering realistic views. Grab a bunch of of these resources and put them in a box and you have living room design without having to manufacture, assemble, light, and shoot it in the real world.
- V-eHGsd_ 3y ago
  honestly they probably have the 3d model made already as part of the design process. eta: ope, I see someone beat me to the same comment.
- follower 3y ago
  To expand on the sibling answer(s) to your question, there was a talk at the most recent Blender conference related to the topic of product visualisation which I found an enjoyable watch: * "Multiverse of madness - how we render millions of doors": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEVncxtmxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEVncxtmxg Product visualisation seems to be a bit of a recurring theme for Blender talks over at least the past couple of years.
  - ToJans 3y ago
    A little bit off topic, but I think he was using the wrong solution here. He could have solved most of his issues by switching to a 3d configurator. I have built a custom threejs engine over the last decade that allows you to declaratively define materials, texture, repeating geometry, ... In a few lines of code. It has primitives like flexible grids, cloning, CSG operations etc. I currently use it mostly for outdoor living structures, but implementing doors and/or floors for this would be trivial. If you'd do this using my engine, the biggest thing left would be gathering the requirements and conventions... So I'd build a configurator for door configurators that allows suppliers to easily create their own configurators... In fact, I'm doing this right now for terrace roofs/sun rooms. Turtles all the way down...

kapperchino 3y ago

Alan wake 2 pretty much requires it too

pjmlp 3y ago

So far they have only been having good support on the engines targeting DirectX 12 Ultimate, as usual Khronos APIs keep getting later to the party. IKEA most likely cares about WebGL and WebGPU, which in any case is irrelvant for Mesh Shaders as they are decades away to arrive in the browsers if past performance is any indication of Web 3D adopting native 3D features.

hajile 3y ago
The big issue with adding features was mostly security (as I understand it). Then they realized that they were never going to achieve good performance with WebGL and Apple proposed porting Metal to the web as webGPU. There doesn't seem to be anything inherently insecure about mesh shaders and they now have working examples in both Vulkan and Metal, so I'd expect them to show up sooner rather than later.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  From the same group of folks that refused to add compute shaders from OpenGL ES, throwing Intel's work into the garbage, forcing a complete application rewrite to use them on the Web.

RetpolineDrama 3y ago

Vulkan only getting a mesh shader API a year ago when Nvidia shipped hardware in 2018 is a joke. I want Vulkan to be great, but it's painfully obvious it's behind.

samus 3y ago
Khronos is inherently unable to be ahead since it is a consortium of vendors with stakes in computer graphics. Khronos APIs are standardizations and/or abstractions on top of the platform-specific APIs, and new APIs and features usually start out as vendor extensions. They get standardized only when they get stabilized and adopted by other vendors. This is exactly what happened with mesh shaders - nVidia shipped the first hardware, but the extensions could rightfully not be uplifted to a standard API before other vendors also delivered implementations, as that could inconvenience their efforts.
- ladyanita22 3y ago
  Vendor-specific extensions exist.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    They do indeed, Vulkan is getting them at higher pace than OpenGL, I hope there is some sauce for that spaghetti. https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listextensions.php https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listextensions.php
  - samus 3y ago
    Yes, and a lot of them introduce features that only later get later standardized into core extensions. Some of them remain proprietary, but it's still useful to have them in Vulkan so that they can be used in special circumstances.
pjmlp 3y ago
Don't hold your breath regarding Direct Storage like capabilities, or work graphs. It has been the same following DirectX lead, from GPU vendors collaboration with Microsoft, and extensions spaghetti as OpenGL. Additionally it seems GLSL is stagnant, and from 2023's panel the suggestion was to adopt HLSL instead as there is no budget for language research.

wlesieutre 3y ago

Nearly 10 years ago Ikea was rendering 75% of their product images, I'm sure it's even higher by now http://web.archive.org/web/20140627040243/http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/building_3d_with_ikea http://web.archive.org/web/20140627040243/http://www.cgsocie... Also, RIP CGSociety. Just went looking for that article and found they shut down earlier this month.

Zetobal 3y ago
It's 100% for the cutouts and 80% for the "emotional" motifs. We still shoot but mainly for images with human interactions.