Composable function systems as a general-purpose rendering framework

2026-06-01

AI Summary

Traditional rendering approaches face significant challenges when handling complex non-fractal geometries, including high memory overhead, limited topological expressiveness, and inflexible animation control. This work proposes a general-purpose rendering framework based on composable function systems, leveraging GPU-accelerated mesh-free representations to enable efficient generation and manipulation of intricate objects. The framework introduces Quibble, a metaprogramming system that facilitates dynamic composition of functional components. By extending function systems beyond conventional rendering into broader visualization and simulation domains, the method supports modeling of topologically non-trivial structures, controllable in-between frame animation, and point-cloud deformation, while maintaining strong interoperability. Experimental results demonstrate that the framework achieves both high performance and expressive artistic control across diverse tasks, including image synthesis, animation authoring, and geometric simulation.

Abstract

Function systems exist as a natural language for the meshless creation and manipulation of complex objects while maintaining minimal memory on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) or Central Processing Unit (CPU). This paper proposes a new method for general-purpose (non-fractal) visualizations and simulations with function systems and introduces Quibble, a metaprogramming framework for composing such systems on the GPU. We also discuss several core advantages of this method including runtime performance, the creation of topologically non-trivial objects, and interoperability with other graphical algorithms. Beyond general-purpose imagery and animations, this method can also be used to give artists more control over in-between frames in low-framerate animations, controllably deform point clouds, and metaprogram difficult animation workflows.

Problem

• function systems
• general-purpose rendering
• meshless modeling
• GPU metaprogramming
• non-fractal visualization

Innovation

• composable function systems
• GPU metaprogramming
• meshless rendering
• topologically non-trivial objects
• Quibble