Alex on software development

Today's post is a bit different from my usual deep dives into mesh geometry. It's a story about architecture - and about going back to the beginning. Think back to how you learned to program. Almost certainly, you started with procedural code: a program w

In the previous post we covered the basics of the half-edge data structure and how to traverse its elements using OpenMesh. This time, we'll look under the hood of add_face - the function that builds the entire structure on the fly. When you call: mesh.ad

Today's post is about C++20 modules and my own journey of converting an existing codebase into modules. After years of waiting, I can finally say the attempt was successful. Back in 2022, trying to use modules in Visual Studio always ended in ICEs. But af

I've looked at a lot of triangle-triangle intersection code across different projects. And every time, one thing stood out: there's no single implementation that covers all the edge cases. That's not surprising. The requirements vary wildly depending on t

Today's post is dedicated to a new feature introduced in C++23 called std::mdspan. There are already a few articles online about it, but it caught my personal attention for three reasons: I've wanted to get rid of boost::multi_array in my codebase for a l

Today we're tackling something that seems simple: how do you tell if a point is inside a triangle? I've got five things I want to do here: Make it a storyThis post will be long, with some detours and extra thoughts. But I think that's the best way to get

Today, I'd like to dedicate a post to the topic of mesh stitching.Stitching meshes is usually necessary when they contain gaps, cracks, or thin, narrow holes that can be stitched together instead of being filled. Such cracks might appear due to incorrect

Recently, I had to review code for undo/redo functionality for a half-edge data structure. This made me reflect on how different programmers approach problem-solving, considering the trade-offs between the development costs and the efficiency of the resul

A mixin is a class designed to inject specific functionality into other classes through inheritance, allowing developers to add behaviors without relying on deep or rigid inheritance hierarchies. Unlike traditional base classes, mixins are often small, fo

In this post, I will discuss the process of clipping operations on meshes using the OpenMesh library. For the purpose of this demonstration, we'll utilize the OpenMesh library to represent our mesh. For those unfamiliar, OpenMesh provides extensive tools