threejs-procedural-geometry

Procedural Geometry

Treat geometry generation as a compiler: select the representation, freeze semantic regions and error bounds, compute exact capacity, emit topology and render attributes, then validate both. Meaning belongs to generator inputs; allocation, topology, groups, updates, and disposal belong to the writer.

For multi-system work, $threejs-choose-skills is an optional coordinator. Fields own continuous causes, materials own PBR response, motion owns deformation state, and this skill owns rendered topology. When geometry supplies another system, publish stable units, coordinate/frame convention, producer and consumer owners, revision, support, validity domain, error bound, and update phase independently of render LOD and draw indices.

1. Select the representation before allocation

Choose from the observable and update pattern:

Contract	Representation
one unique authored surface with material regions	indexed BufferGeometry with groups
many same-material objects with varied topology	BatchedMesh
many repeats with identical topology	InstancedMesh
GPU-owned transforms or visibility with identical topology	matrix-free instanced geometry plus storage-backed state
hot visibility compaction with stable buckets	storage data plus indirect draw commands
continuous single-valued relief	indexed adaptive grid, quadtree, or clipmap with a seam policy
hard terraces, cliffs, or topology-bearing bands	contour-derived caps plus explicit walls/band meshes
visible overhangs or caves	bounded volumetric meshing after memory/topology gates pass

In r185 WebGPU, BatchedMesh manages geometry and culling but the backend still iterates visible multi-draw entries; it is not evidence of one native draw. InstancedMesh is valid only for identical topology.

This step is complete when one representation owns each surface/object class, its culling and update unit is named, and no triangle or buffer has been emitted.

2. Freeze semantics and error contracts

Record coordinate frames, semantic dimensions, named regions, material slots, smoothing groups, UV charts, hard boundaries, topology identities, LOD view envelope, and resource owner. Gate each LOD with a conservative error bound in physical render-target pixels at the actual target size and an unjittered view. Include the complete support and error of geometry, active displacement or deformation, filtering, and reconstruction. Use the exact camera projection or, for a perspective approximation, the nearest valid positive view depth; accept the LOD only when the projected bound is at or below that view's declared threshold. Give each view separate enter/exit thresholds with hysteresis and a minimum dwell, and keep both transition levels resident until the transition finishes. Triangle ratios are supporting counts, not an error bound.

For contour-driven work, consume one versioned field source. Read contour topology and terrain compilation before extracting a shoreline, terrace, band, cliff, or region with holes.

When placement, picking, or measurement anchors must survive LOD or rebuilds, read semantic anchors and LOD bindings before decimation.

This step is complete when every intended face belongs to a semantic region, material slot, smoothing group, UV chart, topology identity, and projected-error gate, and every required anchor has a stable source/topology identity and LOD binding policy.

3. Compute exact capacity, then emit

Count render vertices after all required duplication and count indices before allocation:

vertexCount = unique (topological vertex, boundary domain, attribute values) tuples
indexCount = 3 * triangleCount

Count overlapping split reasons once; a material slot alone need not duplicate identical vertex attributes. Validate safe capacity arithmetic and memory limits before allocation. On the pinned r185 path, use Uint16Array only through index 65534, otherwise explicit Uint32Array: its upload adapter rewrites 65535 in a Uint16 index to the restart sentinel and widens the buffer. Account for the actual uploaded width separately from the CPU array. Emit through a small writer surface such as:

addVertex, addTriangle, addQuad
duplicateForBoundary
startSmoothingGroup, startUvChart, addGroup
finishGeometry

Every index belongs to exactly one nonoverlapping group with a stable material index. finishGeometry asserts the planned and written counts match.

This step is complete when allocation equals the planned capacity exactly, every emitted index is owned by one group, and overflow or unfilled capacity is an explicit error.

4. Close topology, normals, UVs, and frames

Keep topological identity separate from render-vertex identity. Render vertices duplicate at hard normals, material boundaries, UV seams, and mirrored tangent spaces while topological edges still prove adjacency and closure.

Use analytic normals/tangents where the generator owns a parameterization. computeVertexNormals() is for deliberately smooth shared-vertex regions. For normal-map parity, await MikkTSpace.ready before computeMikkTSpaceTangents(...); r185 de-indexes indexed geometry, so recompute counts, groups, bounds, and bytes for that distinct representation. Preserve semantic metadata, active draw range, and attribute type/usage outside that conversion, which does not retain all of them. Convert before GPU publication.

Production UVs express physical distance or declared repeats; normalized local parameters belong in a separate debug attribute. Profile and branch sweeps use a rotation-minimizing parallel-transport frame with an explicit antiparallel fallback and closed-loop holonomy correction.

Read profile sweeps and transported frames when emitting along a curve.

This step is complete when topology closes at every undeclared boundary, normals/tangents match semantic boundaries, UV density is stable across LOD, and transported frames remain continuous through zero curvature and inflections.

5. Wire batching and updates

Initialize and gate the renderer before allocating GPU-owned storage or indirect commands:

await renderer.init();
if (renderer.backend.isWebGPUBackend !== true) {
  throw new Error('Native WebGPU is required for geometry storage and indirect draws.');
}

Check the selected storage bindings and buffer usage against the initialized device limits before compilation.

Set attribute usage before first render. Keep live attribute arrays when layout compilation, raycasting, bounds, serialization, or restoration still reads them; releasing generator intermediates is a separate operation. Dynamic sections retain unconsumed addUpdateRange() component intervals until the adapter uploads them. Empty ranges mean a full upload, not zero work. In r185, DynamicDrawUsage also uploads without a version change; intermittent edits use version-driven usage plus needsUpdate. Recompute affected bounds. Capacity, item size, or usage-model changes replace the owning geometry as a validated resource generation, with explicit retirement of the previous one.

When compute owns instance state, submit compute before the consuming render and keep one transform owner. GPU transforms require bounds for the posed instance domain in every view; base-mesh bounds and CPU raycasts do not observe storage-only deformation. In r185, computeAsync() is not a GPU-completion fence. Indirect commands use CPU-known byte offsets and stable homogeneous buckets; shader masking is not visibility compaction.

Read batching, dynamic updates, and indirect draws before adding a batch container, per-frame mutation, storage state, or indirect draw.

This step is complete when each mutable byte range, dispatch, draw entry, bounding volume, and disposal point has one owner and hidden work is absent from the claimed culling result.

6. Validate topology and render geometry

Validate topological identities before render duplication, then the final BufferGeometry:

• closed/simple/nested contour loops and declared open boundaries;
• two oppositely oriented incident faces per interior topological edge;
• no T-junctions, duplicate faces, bow-ties, or unintended non-manifold edges;
• finite attributes, in-range indices, nondegenerate triangles, and winding;
• unit normals, tangent handedness, physical UV density, group coverage, and bounds containing every vertex;
• protected features and topology through every LOD and mixed-LOD seam;
• stable anchor source/topology IDs, per-LOD bindings, exclusion revisions, and bounded position/frame error through rebuild and LOD changes;
• exact resident/upload bytes, draw/backend entries, update ranges, and sustained target timing where performance is claimed.

Diagnostics expose topological versus render IDs, boundaries, winding, normals, tangents, UV density, material groups, LOD/seam error, batch identity, and dirty ranges.

This step is complete when every semantic region passes topology, attribute, LOD, group, bounds, byte, lifecycle, and claimed performance gates, including adversarial contour and frame cases selected by the active branches.

Completion

The geometry system is complete when representation precedes allocation; exact capacity equals emitted data; semantic topology survives render duplication, batching, updates, and LOD; every index and mutable byte has one owner; and the final mesh passes topology, attribute, projected-error, resource, and lifecycle checks.