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I am fairly excited about these techniques. I consider SDFs to be a very powerful representation of 2D scenes, and of course Inigo Quilez has been demonstrating the incredible power of SDFs in 3D. Of course, the big challenge is, what tools do you use to author content in SDF form? In Inigo's case, it's essentially a text editor, coming up with the math yourself, but that doesn't scale unless you're a genius like him.

So using machine learning and optimization techniques in general to solve inverse problems, so your input is something meaningful, is a way to unlock SDF rendering without requiring a reinvention of the whole tool universe.

If someone wants a modest-scope project, it would be applying these kinds of techniques to blurred rounded rectangle rendering[1]. There, I got the math pretty close, fiddling with it by hand, but I strongly suspect it would be possible to get even closer, using real optimization techniques.

[1] https://raphlinus.github.io/graphics/2020/04/21/blurred-roun...

2 comments

I think Dreams on PS4 kind of answers this question clearly, at least one answer to it.

I do think SDFs are a good path for a great potential breakthrough for AI directed 3d modelling tools like DALL-E -- we're pretty close.

Yes, Dreams is also strong evidence that SDF-based rendering is viable. That project also put an enormous amount of effort into creating new design tools :)

I just wish I could use it without learning the gamepad control system. It just doesn't fit my brain and if I step away from it for a few weeks, I've forgotten how to do everything and almost need to start from scratch.

A version of Dreams with either a) a more traditional desktop UI or b) a more intuitive VR-based UI would make me very happy.

I think you were being hyperbolic and I apologize that I must nevertheless offer my opinion that Inigo isn't so much a genius as a craftsman / artist who has been practicing / pioneering in that field. There are many clever ideas he has uncovered but the basics anybody could learn and with practice also create nice visuals by hand.

I agree with the rest of what you are saying.