Server side object-object occlusion.

I was thinking about how to do server side object-object occlusion.

I propose the following.

1. internally inspect all prims that are ...
A. locked
B. owned by the land owner or set to the land group.
C. are not alpha on any face.
D. Not inside an existing "outer bounding box" of any Zone
This would be a continuously running background task and would take about 2 hours for the entire sim.

2. Once a collection of prims that all touching are found. The intersect routine would be used to merge them into a mega sized mesh in order to make sure that the building is totally solid. Note: A Solid building would have two single sided meshes that do not share any points in common.

3. a "outer bounding box" and an "inner bounding box" would be created based on the outer mesh. If any of the prims are updated or unlocked the entire Zone entry is removed from the sim Zone list.

4. Anyone standing outside the "outer bounding box" would not be sent objects (or updates to objects) that are inside the "inner bounding box"

5. Anyone standing inside the "inner bounding box" would not be sent objects (or updates to objects) that are outside the "outer bounding box"

6. You would receive both sets of objects if you are standing between
the "inner bounding box" and the "outer bounding box".

7. Zones can not overlap and the sim would have to save a flag saying if you are in a zone so that it can re-update objects as you enter or leave the zone.

Since the objects would not be sent the textures would also not be downloaded.

There are some strange things that would happen in that if your camera looked outside or inside you would see either a blank area or what ever was there the last time the objects were updated.

The system would also work best for buildings that were aligned N/S E/W and were rectangular in nature, but the system would work for any building that is totally sealed using phantom doors or "invisiprims"


PS: I also think we should be able to turn off the ground layer on a 4x4m basis in order to build underground.

I sometimes think that unless I spell out the resulting advantages no one will care.

Server side object-object occlusion would...
1. Prevent someone looking into your house.
2. Increase frame rates while you are outside.
3. Decrease "object update" induced LAG
4. Prevent your PC from having to download all the images that are inside your neighbors house. (This would include all the naughty ones you don't want to see)

Adding the ability to disable 4x4m squares of land would then further allow basements.

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I would go into the details about the mesh combination algorithm, but I feel that I am talking to the wind in this forum when I talk about programing details.

I read your post and thought it was a great idea, but didn't think you'd need affirmation .

I'm not sure why it has to be limited to merely enclosed structures though. Things like Orientation Island (and most stores on their sim) are entirely static and only very rarely change.

If an entire sim could be marked as static and get precalculated that would increase performance tremendously in specific cases... I think?

Privacy has been discussed many times before. The real problem is to get a Linden dev to take it seriously and to do that you need more enthusiastic voting on the Public Issue Tracker (JIRA) for the issues already raised there or you should raise yet another privacy/object occlusion post there.

Once a Linden dev gets seriously enthusiastic he or she will probably have a fair idea what they want to do and it does not really matter what we have said and recommended be done!