In January 2018 I was a penniless, jobless PhD dropout who had recently graduated with an MS in Computer Science. During my Master's degree I researched 4D animation. What is 4D, you ask? That's a discussion for another day (but probably soon). I'll admit that, at first, I thought higher-dimensional geometry was an eccentric fringe topic in Mathematics. I didn't see a purpose and, frankly, I thought it was kind of boring. But that didn't stop my MS advisor from trying to recruit me. (Actually, he never knew this. I wonder if he would have tried to recruit me if he knew what I thought about 4D).
Rewinding a bit...
I was intrigued by the possibility of a Master's Degree, but I had my heart set on doing research in ray tracing. I had a chat with my soon-to-be advisor and we came up with an idea that fit both of our interests: path tracing in 4D. People had been doing Whitted-style ray tracing in 4D as early as 1992. To my knowledge, no one had ever attempted Monte Carlo path tracing in 4D. So I found a good open-source path tracer, Rayito, forked it, and Frankenstein'd it into a 4D path tracer, Rayito 4D. No publication came of it (it was probably very publishable, but I was a naive undergrad and didn't know anything about the modern academic world), but I made some pretty pictures and animations. And it was actually fun. As soon as I had made a few animations, my advisor and I knew that 4D animation had to be my MS thesis topic.
Fast forward a few years, back to penniless, jobless old me. I had finished my Master's degree and developed a general-purpose 4D animation system, which I call Fourveo. I had left a good PhD program, pride hurt, and still looking for a job so I could feed my family. In the meantime, I wanted to show off Fourveo and what it could do. In my MS thesis I say that my system is easier to use than any other 4D-capable software. After nearly a year, I had only a handful of animations to show for it. I wanted to prove that it really was easy (ish) to use. I also lacked the variety of demonstrations needed to really show off the animation system.
If it really was easy to use, it would be no problem to make tons of animations. I could make a new one every day, right? That's the idea behind this project. One 4D animation, start to finish, every single day. They don't have to be complex or really difficult. They just have to be unique. So far I've been doing pretty well. It's day 152 and I've only missed 2 days (and I have a fairly good excuse for missing those days).
You: But Justin, it's already June. Where are the animations?
Me: Good question. They're coming.
I wasn't able to start posting until just recently because I was writing a research paper about my 4D animation system. If I had started posting results before the paper was accepted, I may have undermined the publishability of the research. I would have traded my first peer-reviewed article for a handful of blog posts and videos.
You: So why are you posting now? Wait, you didn't get published, did you?!
Me: Bingo! I actually just got back from China where I gave a presentation on my paper.
So now it's all legit. I can finally start sharing all my fun work. So stay tuned. I'm going to try to post every week, showcasing the previous week's animations. The first 152 days may be a bit spotty. It's gonna be a lot of work to get all of them in a presentable state. But from here on out I hope to keep this blog up-to-date. I might even do a few posts on what the heck 4D actually means. I'm aware that I'm posting these initial animations without any context and I apologize for that.
So go ahead and browse through my work. Feel free to comment, ask questions, and offer criticism. If you want to tell me my work sucks, you are free to do so. If you look at my work and have no idea what the heck is going on, please let me know. I think 4D animation is really interesting and, as a 4D evangelist, I'd like to show 4D in a way that no one has seen before.
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