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History

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Any chance we can get a history of voxels. its the reason i came here, i was looking for the origins of voxels, specifically games, which one were they used in first. i know Blood has them inbut idk if its the first. i may have to do some rabbit hole digging. and no offence, but i really cant be harrassed with writing timestaps and whatnot. my IP should be here, my internet username across...everything, is D0S81....google me. but yeah, a history f the voxel would be cool because immo, i think thats where game engines are headed. fully voxel worlds. im talking photo real levels of detail all voxels. in a bout 50 to 100 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.40.32.190 (talk) 13:38, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Game References

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Someone really needs to add 3d Dot Game Heroes or at least mention of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.51.81.181 (talk) 22:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Minecraft HAS to be added. http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.96.66.73 (talk) 14:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Minecraft does, in fact, not use a voxel-based engine and exists solely out of polygons. While I personally think it should at least be mentioned (they're not "real" voxels, but they look like them?) I don't think they should be in the list of uses in computer gaming.--Quatroking (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is fair to say Minecraft uses voxel elements for most of the game world. A person might be able to make an argument that minecraft doesn't really use volume rendering as many blocks or elements are displayed as a blockly model though. 70.140.26.124 (talk) 17:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Minecraft may not render them as such, but they are certainly saved(and processed) as voxels. 94.22.89.14 (talk) 22:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, no they're not. 173.29.74.216 (talk) 13:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Blocks in Minecraft are represented using an array of bytes, where each byte defines the block id (type) of a single block, but does not encode any position information. The position information can be inferred by the relative position of each byte in the array. This matches the description of voxel data provided in the first paragraph of the article. I think it's safe to say that Minecraft stores block information using a voxel data set. It just doesn't use voxel rendering, which is a separate thing entirely.129.2.167.194 (talk) 01:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's just a method of storage though. Bikes and cars both use roads, but bikes=\= cars. 71.17.165.128 (talk) 19:53, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of how they rendered Minecraft blocks are voxels. It doesn't matter if they are implemented weird. A quick check of the title this article is about the voxel not about rendering methods that use voxels. I am adding Minecraft to the list.Circuitboardsushi (talk) 22:26, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Minecraft entry has been added and deleted repeatedly since around 2011. I was hoping to help clear this up with my recent edits. I do realize that my entry does contain synthesis of published material, reaching the same conclusions as 129.2.167.194. I hope that this can be clarified further. 24.49.138.153 (talk) 13:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sure an MDA is pixel based as it renders pixels as block of pixels. Oh well we can remove the can on display from description of most early computers--MasterLee (talk) 13:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

there needs to be better links to other software and research about this.

i know the stonybrook.edu computer science department's Arie Kaufman is a leader in this field, they developed their own 3d voxel hardware arrays and stuff.. also there are some simple programs that use the idea like http://www.everygraph.com/frame.php?contents=product&name=voxel3d this thing. -sean

- Total Annihilation doesn't use any kind of voxels for its units, it's really all polygon based.

- I added it, you could have done it yourself ;) If you have other links, add them here. --Soyweiser 14:20, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

-Voxels are actively used in the game engine of 'Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun' and 'Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2'. Perhaps a mention of those? In fact, there are user made voxels for use in the games across various modding sites. I could edit this all into the article if you like. - A voxeler

  • Master of Orion 3 used voxel graphics for space combat. Although, one could say that the MOO3 example is a strike against voxels; not only did the game generally disappoint fans of the series, but specifically the space combat looked pretty ugly and screen shots of it was used by some as an example as to the poor quality of the game.-Mee Ronn 18:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed the description of voxel as necessarily representing colour values - they can be intensity or other quantities, e.g. densities of a cloud -andrewmu

- Why mention Height Maps??? What does that have to do with voxels?? (I would remove that section)

-Agreed. I removed the little blurb that was there, though I think they might deserve a mention as a way to constrast the different terrain generation methods Averisk 17:55, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Delta Force, Delta Force 2, and most (or all) flight sims released by Novalogic in the late ninties used voxels for terrain. By the way, the linked program (Voxel3D) is terrible. It is incredibly resource-demanding and the manual seems poorly translated. Some guy 07:24, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A particular type of volume model called Voxel Models can be used (as opposed to 3D objects, for example, .DXF file displays). Voxel Models are derived from third-party software such as volume simulation or inversion packages. Voxel models can represent volumes of any physical medium such as the earth, an air mass or a body of water. The volume is subdivided in a regular way into sub-volumes, or cells. Each cell, created from six sides, contains a volume of the medium having a uniform property attribute. Such properties as density, conductivity or gas concentration (eg parts per million of a particular gas) can be used. Certain software products (such as Vulcan, Gemcom, Surpac) and geophysical software from inversion applications (eg .UBC) can create 3D voxel files. As a AeroGIS engineer I use the product Engage3D, a Mapinfo plug-in module from ENCOM, Sydney, Australia to represent 3D noise curves and air pollution near and around airports. I can place voxel models on or over digital terrain models, produce animations showing voxel propagation based on wind, noise levels, etc.

How is one of the most advanced implementations of voxels in a game not listed on this page? I think I'll go ahead and add No Man's Sky myself99.255.117.219 (talk) 02:27, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The section about Minecraft says that "[it] does not use voxel rendering techniques. Instead it uses polygon rendering to display each voxel as a cubic "block".", but the reference [17] does not state anywhere on what rendering method are used for Minecraft. Can this please be clarified? Celsiuss (talk) 08:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Novalogic VoxelSpace Confusion

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This article should explain how Novalogic's misuse of the word voxel created confusion for years among the gaming community. What Novalogic calls "VoxelSpace" is at best a very distorted and limited interpretation of the word voxel. Many gamers still think voxels are vertical lines used to draw terrains based on some height-map.

Don't you think that there are some images missing ? It is an article about computer graphics after all.

I'll find some images from Shadow Warrior when I get the chance ataricom 18:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Articles

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It seems the article needs a pass to add and correct the definite and indefinite articles and the use of 'voxel' vs. 'voxels'. Example: In the first paragraph we have this: " rendering systems infer the position of a voxel based upon its position relative to other voxels ", and then later we see this: " Model set elements in this case are state parameters, indicating voxel belonging to the modeled object or its separate parts ". I would do it myself, but I am afraid I might misunderstand a few of them and get it wrong... — Preceding unsigned comment added by KurtHLarson (talk • contribs) 22:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blocks vs. Voxels

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Imagine a 2D game that uses tiles, that does not allow individual pixels to be changed (e.g. Factorio) - it would be a tile based game and not a pixel based game. Now imagine a game that allows pixels to be changed (e.g. Worms) - it would be a pixel based game and not a tile based game.

Next imagine a 3D game that uses textured blocks that does not allow individual voxels to be changed (e.g. Minecraft) - it would be a block based game and not a voxel based game. Finally, imagine a game that allows individual voxels to be changed (e.g. Ace of Spades) - it would be a voxel based game and not a block based game.

A block is not a voxel in the same way that a tile is not a pixel.

About half of the games listed on this page are not voxel based games, they're block based games.

BrendanTrotter (talk) 09:27, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clear as mud

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What is the meaning of the following sentence - in English?:

'A voxel represents the sub-volume box with constant scalar/vector value inside which is equal to scalar/vector value of the corresponding grid/pixel of the original discrete representation of the volumetric data.'

Please rewrite this so that a graphics hobbyist might hope to understand it. If it should really be two or more similar sentences, then please write it that way. And examples would help to clarify the murk. yoyo (talk) 16:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On rereading the article and talk page, it seems to me that the 'Voxel data' section might be better headed 'Voxel models', and that its first sentence (which I quoted and complained about above) could almost make sense if it were prefaced by the following text, pinched from the last (unattributed) paragraph of the first (untitled) section of this talk page, then tweaked:

'Voxel models can represent volumes of any physical medium such as the earth, an air mass or a body of water. The volume is subdivided in a regular way into sub-volumes, or cells. Each cell, defined and bounded by six sides, contains a volume of the medium having a uniform value of some property. Such properties as density, conductivity or gas concentration (eg parts per million of a particular gas) can be used. Certain software products (such as Vulcan, Gemcom, Surpac) and geophysical software from inversion applications (eg .UBC) can create 3D voxel files.'

Still unclear from the foregoing are:

  1. whether a voxel and a cell are one and the same
  2. whether the cell must be cubical, or instead may be any volume obtained by smoothly deforming a cube.

yoyo (talk) 16:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely! Your definition is so much better. I have complained about this phenomenon before on other pages, where so-called 'experts' hijack a page and rewrite it in specialist jargon so as to make it completely unintelligible to the layman. User:James_Monroe
actually voxels are NOT cubes with a volume and a "uniform value of some property". They are samples (i.e. they are point with no physical size) of a continuous signal, taken on a uniformly spaced grid. What's shown between two samples depends on what reconstruction filter you are using. It may be a constant value if you are using a "nearest" filter, or it may be a linear ramp if you are using linear interpolation. The same error is often seen about pixels (i.e. considering them like "small squares" instead of samples of a continuous image).
A pixel may be either a sample/point in an evenly spaced 2D grid or a value representing the average of the entire surface area of a rectangle; where depending on the situation the former may be inferior (e.g. high risk of moiré patterns) or superior (easier to interpolate to get gradients when scaled up). In the same way a voxel can be either (but for most games its a value representing the average of all points within a rectangular cuboid and not a single sample in an evenly spaced 3D grid). BrendanTrotter (talk) 03:42, 15 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The average reader gets nothing from this: "A voxel represents the sub-volume box with constant scalar/vector value inside which is equal to scalar/vector value of the corresponding grid/pixel of the original discrete representation of the volumetric data. The boundaries of a voxel are exactly in the middle between neighboring grids. Voxel data sets have a limited resolution, as precise data is only available at the center of each cell. Under the assumption that the voxel data is sampling a suitably band-limited signal, accurate reconstructions of data points in between the sampled voxels can be attained by low-pass filtering the data set. Visually acceptable approximations to this low pass filter can be attained by polynomial interpolation such as tri-linear or tri-cubic interpolation." The entire article could be accurately summed up as "well, its like 3d pixels." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.178.202 (talk) 01:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've replaced this borderline nonsensical paragraph with what I believe to be a faithful translation into more or less understandable English. As pointed out by the rest of this discussion, the original was full of fancy terms, but also dubious grammar, and clearly communicated very little. I believe the only thing I've lost is the detail about band-limited signals and low-pass filtering, which might be outside the scope of a basic description anyway. Anyone who better understands that, if it's appropriate, please throw in a proper translation (the original text is in the history, or the above comment). Perhaps more importantly, the original paragraph was not sourced, and neither is my translation. Daeval (talk) 09:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To represent spatial terms and concepts, only images that include shading or other dimensional referencing should be used. This should not appear to be a puzzle of optical illusions, as does the current first image. An example of acceptable image (a rather good one) is http://www.volviz.com/images/3Ddatasetsmall.png . Art4med (talk) 01:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MPEG like JPEG

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We store 2D images in JPEG. We too store movies (2D+time) in MPEG. But with software displaying time as third spatial dimension, we can store 3D voxel images in MPEG. And MPEG has good compression. Imagine 1024x1024x1024 static 3D voxel image in MPEG. It equals 1024x1024 dynamic 2D movie with 1024 frames. And this is short movie.82.192.79.139 (talk) 16:29, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe your are a genius because nobody has ever had the same idea, but I think it is just a sign of your incomprehension. :) --217.231.55.241 (talk) 14:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A couple issues with that. Biggest issue is that MPEG uses lossy compression. In a voxel sense, what was stone might be turned into dirt. Second issue is that MPEG uses information in one frame, and takes it forward to another. In a voxel sense, every change would have to recompress the entire area. Lordcheeto (talk) 20:09, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Outcast, a game made by Belgian developer Appeal, sports outdoor landscapes that are rendered by a voxel engine"

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_%28video_game%29 says: "The game does not actually model three-dimensional volumes of voxels. Instead, it models the ground as a surface, which may be seen as being made up of voxels. The ground is decorated with objects that are modeled using texturemapped polygons."

Novalogic's games neither don't use real voxel graphics, if I really understand it. --217.231.55.241 (talk) 13:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Z.A.R. voxel game

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There is another game using voxels it's called Z.A.R. ("Zone of Artificial Resources") it's russian (or ukrainian?) made. It was pretty advanced for it's time and it didn't use any polygons at all - instead sprites were used to render enemies & objects, only terrain was voxel. MobyGames link: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/zar 46.109.106.63 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:14, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vector Graphics vs Raster Graphics

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Please do what you can to distinguish the difference between voxel Raster graphics and vector graphics. It is very important to do so because not all voxel implementations are the same and the techniques are very different where the former is usually software side and the latter being hardware accelerated. 72.72.229.110 (talk) 17:42, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sample

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Multidimensional voxels

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There are pixels which are two-dimensional and voxels which are three-dimensional pixels. But what is a one-dimensional pixel called? Or a four-dimensional pixel? Sure, it might be a line segment or a tesseract, but we don't call pixels or voxels squares and cubes.

STREEPJE (talk) 13:06, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

PET Scan

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The term is also used to refer to the highlighted segments identified in 3D scanning techniques like Positron emission tomography. Reference to the same can be found in the following academic journal publication: Hofman, Michael S.; Hicks, Rodney J. (18 October 2016). "How We Read Oncologic FDG PET/CT". Cancer Imaging. 16 (1). doi:10.1186/s40644-016-0091-3.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) Diptanshu 💬 01:56, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Voxel Design & Editing Software

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I have just published a Voxel software list, I propose that this list is somehow integrated into, or linked to by this wikipedia page or a new Wikipedia page called "Voxel-Editors" and then Voxel-Editors mentioned in this Wikipedia page in the Categories. https://james-william-fletcher.medium.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-voxel-editors-990214eefa9a — Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesWilliamFletcher (talk • contribs) 22:39, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not meant to be a link directory or a software catalog, an indiscriminate list like that is off topic for an encyclopedia project. - MrOllie (talk) 22:57, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
this is true and I am aware the links themselves are problematic but maybe there is a way we can include some portion of this list in some manner, for example some of the software is certainly notable such as MagicaVoxel, Avoyd, Goxel, Voxelator, etc, maybe we can distil the notable software and potentially list it without the links depending on how the whitelisting goes? It would go just above the games list where the old software list was, only the old software list was incredibly bias and listed software that was not really Voxel software but polygon CAD software bootstrapped with some Voxel functionality. - JamesWilliamFletcher (talk) 00:29, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On Wikipedia we typically limit such lists to software that has a standalone Wikipedia article of its own - indeed, this article had such a list until you removed it. If you think we should write about MagicaVoxel or any of the others and there are sufficient sources available to meet WP:N, you should write the Wikipedia article first. See Help:Your first article for information on how to go about doing that. MrOllie (talk) 00:28, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
affirmative, thank you I will investigate this route. - JamesWilliamFletcher (talk) 00:34, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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