A Unified Architecture for N-Dimensional Visualization and Simulation: 4D Implementation and Evaluation including Boolean Operations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified architecture for N-dimensional visualization and simulation, demonstrating a 4D implementation with features like Boolean operations, hyperplane slicing, and a new data format, enabling high-dimensional exploration on a single PC.

Contribution

It presents an N-dimensional architecture integrating multiple processes and introduces the 'Plex' file format for mesh data exchange, with a focus on 4D implementation and high-dimensional interaction design.

Findings

4D implementation runs efficiently on a single PC.

The architecture supports Boolean operations and hyperplane slicing.

Experimental results validate the 4D system's functionality.

Abstract

This paper proposes a unified software architecture for visualization and simulation based on a design targeting an N-dimensional space. The contributions of this study are twofold. First, it presents an architectural configuration that integrates multiple processes into a single software architecture: Quickhull-based convex hull mesh generation, Boolean operations, coordinate transformations for high-dimensional exploration (pose transformation and view transformation), and hyperplane slicing for visualization. Second, it defines "Plex" (.plex) as a file format intended for the exchange of N-dimensional mesh data. The proposed approach adopts an approximate implementation that tolerates numerical errors and prioritizes implementation transparency over guarantees of numerical rigor. The experimental results and evaluations presented in this paper are limited to a 4D implementation; no evaluation is conducted for N > 4, and the discussion is restricted to stating that the architecture itself has a dimension-independent structure. This paper also proposes an interaction design for high-dimensional exploration based on FPS navigation. As an input example involving shape changes over time, a non-rigid body simulation based on XPBD (Extended Position Based Dynamics) is integrated into the 4D implementation. Experimental results confirm that the 4D implementation runs on a single PC.