Block G · Geometry as a declaration

Geometry as a declaration

Cottony's tray, star, ball and props are four modules of imperative geometry code, and the shape each one describes is not readable without running it. Stating a shape should not mean writing and debugging a program.

tray.geom.toml [[part]] op = "extrude_outline" outline = "rounded_rect" radius = 0.06 height = 0.018 [[part]] op = "radial_array" count = 6 BUILT six seats, one radial array reachable by the search radius and height are numbers in a file, not constants inside a module nothing can reach reviewable before it is built two wrong constructions of one tray each looked reasonable while being written

Read off what the assets already do

A format covering only primitives would leave every real asset back in code. The vocabulary comes from the existing models: extruded outlines, crowned plates, radial arrays, annuli and boolean pockets — not from a list of shapes that seemed reasonable.

Numbers the search can reach

Geometry constants live inside a module while the rig's live in a dataclass, so a search can reach the lighting and never the shape it is lighting. A declaration puts both in the same place, which is the whole reason this block is worth doing at all.

The escape hatch is part of the design

Any format will meet a shape it cannot state, and forcing that shape into the format produces worse geometry than the script it replaced. A declaration that cannot express a shape has to leave a way back to code, and saying so now is cheaper than discovering it later.

The block itself

Five open lines, in the roadmap's own words

Each line names the failure it exists to remove and the measurement behind it. None of them has shipped. This list is generated from docs/ROADMAP.md, so it cannot describe a backlog the file does not have.

📋PW30a shape is a Python script, so stating one means writing and debugging a programCottony's tray, star, ball and props are four modules of imperative geometry code, and the shape each describes is not readable without running it.
📋PW31a format covering only primitives would leave every real asset in codeThe existing models use extruded outlines, crowned plates, radial arrays, annuli and boolean pockets, so the vocabulary has to be read off what they already do.waits on PW30
📋PW32a shape's own numbers are unreachable from the search that tunes everything elseGeometry constants live inside a module while the rig's live in a dataclass, so a search can reach the lighting and never the shape it is lighting.waits on PW13, PW30
📋PW33a shape cannot be reviewed without building it, so a wrong construction is found in the renderTwo wrong constructions of one tray's seats each looked reasonable while being written and were only visible once rendered, which is the expensive place.waits on PW30
📋PW34a declaration that cannot express a shape leaves no way back to codeAny format will meet a shape it cannot state, and forcing that shape into the format produces worse geometry than the script it replaced.waits on PW30
The other blocks

What this one sits next to

A

What a call costs the turn

Handles for anything slow, a post-condition on every operation, typed errors that name the remedy, a surface that describes itself and this machine, and configuration resolved per call.

6 lines
B

Seeing the result cheaply

A surface is read on a sphere in three seconds, a render returns its measurements in the same answer, a distribution is reported as a set rather than a mean, and a sheet shows an asset beside its siblings.

5 lines
C

The asset compiler

What counts as a correct render, written as a file a search can aim at; a search that finds the rig numbers instead of a person finding them by hand; a cache so nothing renders twice; and a trace of everything the search rejected.

4 lines
D

Fetching without surprise

A silhouette gate before the credit moves, a ceiling agreed once instead of a question per fetch, the mesh kept because the service deletes it at seventy-two hours, and a fetched asset normalised into this project's axes.

6 lines
E

One world with the engine

A Godot run judged by what the script printed rather than by an exit code that means nothing, a capture that works where there is no screen, a scale derived instead of tuned, and a runner pinned so two machines agree.

4 lines
F

Motion

A fetched mesh rigged so it can be posed at all, motion as a clip rather than a second static render, curves as text a diff can show, and one source for both a 2D sprite and a 3D scene.

4 lines