Language Designs for Geometry and Heterogeneous Reasoning in Graphics Programming

There has been growing demand for graphical image rendering in the past several decades. This demand has arisen primarily in video games, but also from fields as broad as film, art, architecture, and scientific simulation. A major challenge with expanding use of rendering, however, is that graphics programming is difficult, requiring significant field expertise when abstractions break down. In this dissertation, we will examine how we may be able to design programming languages to ameliorate some of these challenges. Our goal will be to examine two specific difficulties in graphics programming reasoning: geometric correctness and performance in heterogeneous device communication. In the first chunk of this dissertation, we will examine Gator, a language which provides type-level reasoning for a class of bugs we describe as "geometry bugs", as well as a lightweight mechanism to reason about operations on geometry. In the second chunk of this dissertation, we will discuss Caiman, a language which typechecks heterogeneous implementations against a fixed specification. We will also examine how Caiman's type-level restrictions allow for separating performance and correctness, as well as providing a mechanism for restricted synthesis of heterogeneous programs.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D., Computer Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctor of Philosophy

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

Cornell University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Geisler, Dietrich

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Marschner, Stephen
• Foster, John
• Martinez, Jose

• Compilers
• Graphics
• Programming Languages

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7298/reh0-tm98

Dc Identifier Other

ProQuest Submission ID: 14574
ProQuest Publication ID: 31488511

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ecommons.cornell.edu:1813/116455