irmf/irmf: Infinite Resolution Materials Format (IRMF) Shaders

What is an “infinite resolution materials format (IRMF) shader?”?

An IRMF shader consists of two parts: a JSON blob description and a set of instructions used to determine what material is placed at any point in 3D space. What makes it a shader is that it is used simultaneously for every voxel (volumetric pixel) within the object. This means that the code has to behave differently for every (x,y,z) position within 3D space.

Do IRMF shaders really have infinite resolution?

Well, yes and no. They are currently limited by the resolution of a GPU's float representation. However, the IRMF shader itself is pure math and does not limit the resolution of the model, so IRMF is truly an appropriate term for the shaders as they are not the limiting factor. When GPUs have higher resolution in their numeric representations, no major changes will be needed to update the IRMF shaders...

How are IRMF shaders different from signed distance functions (SDFs)?

IRMF shaders are much easier to write than SDFs. In fact, one could write genetic programs to generate IRMF shaders.

What is the status of IRMF?

IRMF has evolved from a conceptual framework into a practical ecosystem for 3D printing and modeling. A comprehensive suite of converters (including stl-to-irmf, obj-to-irmf, binvox-to-irmf, svx-to-irmf, and dlp-to-irmf) enables the conversion of legacy 3D formats into IRMF shaders using techniques like lossless cuboid-merging and Fourier series approximation.