Hacker News Reader

Comment by legends2k | Hacker News Reader

In case someone is interested in the design:

https://bbcdn.githack.com/rmsundaram/tryouts/raw/e06259fffad...

Devising the algorithm took around a month; did it in my free time. The implementation took a week, in HTML5 Canvas/JavaScript. Doing a 360°, not-bound-by-distance FoV would have been simpler, but FoV limited by both angle and distance took time.

The idea is to find the field of view of an observer on a map with blocking buildings (polygons) and also to service a line of sight query, to know if a given point is visible to the observer.

The code contains enough comments including citations and references to articles and books. Here's the actual repo from where the above page is served:

http://bitbucket.org/rmsundaram/tryouts/src/master/CG/WebGL/...

View on HN

Well done! It's almost the same algorithm I came up with in one sleepless night, 7 years ago. I used it in a game that was not finished: http://feiss.be/games/luxi (shameless Show HN)

Wow, the visuals look stunning, I like the noir theme!

Thanks! :) It's a shame we didn't finished it..

It's beautiful.

This looks like something that could do well comercially today, you guys should pick it back up.

I second this.

Hah, thanks a lot. We always thought we had something cool in our hands, but our agendas didn't match and our budget was null.. The worst thing is that since then I lost faith in indie teams, and prefer the solo path, like a lone rider.. :/

Got a bug here:

http://pasteboard.co/1vhAc3yM.png

Thanks! Seems to be a failing corner case, will look into it.

Pun fully intended? :)

The code is very well commented! Great learning resource for anybody interested.

I've also done something similar about 10 years ago. I'm curious if you've ever seen my (unfinished) project:

https://vimeo.com/62844255

https://github.com/shurcooL/eX0

No, I have not come across it until now but from the screenshot it looks nice.

Cool. Verifying the old Engineering adage about a month in the lab saving you a day in the library. Or 10 minutes on Google these days.

Still, sounds like a fun time. I have my own version of this sitting around on a floppy disk somewhere, done at a point in time where floppy disks existed (possibly even 5 1/4" ones).

Thanks! Spent quite some time searching for the algorithm in Google, DDG, what-have-you, but didn't find something that does exactly what I want and also none that explains it lucidly for anyone who wants to understand it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com