I had some “well, they’re sorta graphics-related” links left from making yesterday’s blog post. Here you go:

• MeshOptimizer – definitely graphical, a software system that encompasses a wide range of optimization techniques for real-time display of meshes. Listed today because I mentioned another resource by the same author (on Vulkan) yesterday – I didn’t want to overload that post with “all-things-zeux.”
• Desmos Global Math Art Content results – kids use weird equations to make line art creations on a graphing calculator app. Click on one and open up the folders to see the crazy. Future ShaderToy programmers in training, I guess…
• Reading the first chapter of Ray Tracing Gems II (free to download, and also now re-available in soft and hardcover through Apress, soon through Amazon I assume), I found I’ve been misusing “depth of field” for these many decades. That’s of course a teaser for you to check it out yourself. I like the author’s tone of exasperation. That said, “defocus blur” seems unlikely to fully catch on.
• Electronic Arts has taken a patent pledge to not sue anyone reusing their accessibility-centered technology patents. Not a lot of patents covered, but a nice thing nonetheless.
• This announcement reminded me of a 1993 article, Patent Nonsense, by John Walker, one of the founders of Autodesk. He talks about the idea of companies making cross-licensing pools of patents.
• Which reminded me of another article that he wrote worth a read, “Creation/Evolution,” about how trying to get a design perfect at the start is a fool’s errand. Which reminds me of the book Adapt, by Tim Harford, which I just started and am enjoying… OK, I’ll stop the flow of consciousness here.
• The Microsoft Teams virtual backgrounds page is a bit of a surprise, even after noting it’s under the “Educator Center” heading. My new favorite Teams background:

Seven graphics-related things gathered up over the past months that I thought worth passing on:

• Nanite presentation from people at Unreal at SIGGRAPH 2021. Quite involved by the end, and it gets over my head without further reading on my part (e.g., “Tetrapuzzles”), but gives you a sense of how Unreal’s Nanite system works. I particularly liked how they go through alternatives for presenting worlds with massive amounts of detail, ruling out each in turn. Also, Slide 81 and thereabouts is pretty fascinating, that their scheme (visibility buffer for tiny polygons) is faster with “software” (compute shaders on the GPU) than “hardware” (traditional GPU) rasterization. (Updated: thanks, Olivier Groulx, for the correction! Me, I dislike saying “software vs. hardware,” as the slide does – both methods are controlled by software and run on hardware.)
• The nanite presentation is just one of many from the SIGGRAPH 2021 Advances in Real-Time Rendering for Games course. And for much more that was at (virtual) SIGGRAPH, see Stephen Hill’s wonderful SIGGRAPH 2021 links page.
• GPU Zen 2 is now just $2.99 for the Kindle version. See the table of contents (and some article teasers) here, code here, and a free article here, “Writing an Efficient Vulkan Renderer.”
• Samsung announced ray tracing support for upcoming mobile devices.
• Free models? Here’s another small site, Poly Haven. I’ve update this site’s Portal Page with it (item #18 in the list).
• Finally, Doom can be played on a pregnancy test.
• The last time “teapot” was mentioned in this blog was 2014. Until now, I hadn’t noticed the sometimes-yearly University of Utah Teapot Rendering Competition. Normally I like to end these quick posts with a picture – just click that link instead for a little treat of (Halloween, I guess) eye candy.