How does the "Unlimited Detail" graphics technology work?

Question

So I stumbled upon this "new" graphics engine/technology called Unlimited Detail.

This seems to be pretty interesting granted it's real and not a fake.

They have some videos explaining the technology but they only scratch the surface.

What do you think about it? Is it programmatically possible? Or is it just a scam for investors?

Update: Since the only answer was based on voxels I have to copy this from their site:

Unlimited Details method is very different to any 3D method that has been invented so far. The three current systems used in 3D graphics are Ray tracing polygons and point cloud/voxels, they all have strengths and weaknesses. Polygons runs fast but has poor geometry, Ray-trace and voxels have perfect geometry but run very slowly. Unlimited Detail is a fourth system, which is more like a search algorithm than a 3D engine

Health

Answer 1

The underlying technology is related to something called sparse voxel octrees (see, e.g., this paper), which aren't anything incredibly amazing. What the video doesn't tell you is that these are not at all suited for things that need to be animated, so they're of limited use for anything that uses procedural animation (e.g., all ragdoll physics, etc.). So they're very inflexible. You can get great detail, but you get it in a completely static world.

A rough summary of where things stand with this technology in mainstream games is here. You will also want to check out Samuli Laine's work; he's a Finnish researcher who is focusing a great deal of his attention on this subject and is unlocking some of the secrets to implementing it well.

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Update: Yes, the website says it's not "voxel-based". I suspect this is merely an issue of semantics, however, in that what they're using are essentially voxels, but because it's not exactly a voxel they feel safe in being able to claim that it's not voxel-based. In any case, the magic isn't in how similar to a voxel it is -- it's how they select which voxels to actually show. This is the primary determinant of speed.

Right now, there is no incredibly fast way to show voxels (or something approximating a voxel). So either they have developed a completely new, non-peer-reviewed method for filtering voxels (or something like them), or they're lying.

Zoezoeller

They clearly say it is not voxel-based. I updated my question. – Health

@Daniel Dimovski: so it's almost impossible they found something "new". Well I also think that their engine is fake but I don't deny the fact that they may have found a new way. – Health

@daddz: If it's not voxel-based, it will nevertheless almost certainly have all the characteristics I described: fast on static scenes, but tough/very tedious to animate for. – Zoezoeller

I agree with John - it uses a classic octree approach to search for renderable objects (that much was obvious from the writeup). It looks like some sort of voxely kind of idea. The representation of information has to be some item that is accessible, whether it be a polygon, a voxel, or some sort of space-add/subtract polytope. – Kamin

Answer 2

You might find more detail in the following patents:

"A Computer Graphics Method For Rendering Three Dimensional Scenes"

"A Method For Efficent Streaming Of Octree Data For Access"
- Each voxel (they call it a "node") is represented as a single bit, along with information voxels at a finer level of detail.

The full-text can be viewed online here:
https://www.lens.org/lens/search?q=Euclideon+Pty+Ltd&l=en
or
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?submitted=true&query=EUCLIDEON

Decennary

Note: I think these patents are only for Canada and Australia, where you are allowed to patent algorithms. – Decennary

Thank you for this answer whish is obviously the good one. Their technique is a "mashup" of a very good streaming algorithm for the octree structure (How to access a huge octree of, let say 200Go?) and another very efficient rendering algorithm whish address the questions how to render an octree (of cubes) and how to apply occlusion culling to it. Both technique optimizing each other. – Bowling