We are all about learning new and interesting theories in the world of computing, but this look at voxels and point clouds replacing standard polygon-based geometry is out there.  A company called Unlimited Detail (ironic…) is claiming that without a GPU, modern processors can achieve much higher detail using using voxel data rather than pixels on polygons. 

I can see tons of holes in the argument, the first of which is that this is a brand new company with little to no background to to give them any “street cred” about the idea.  But we are always open to discussion. 

A story about the end of polygons - Graphics Cards 2


Polygons are what is used in the games industry (both PC and console) today. Polygons are two dimensional plane figures composed of straight lines. A pixel, as you know, is a dot on the screen; a voxel can be thought of like a dot on the screen that moves like it is in 3D space. A voxel is a value on a 3D grid. Point cloud data is when you make whole objects out of voxels. Voxels provide more detail than polygons because you get true rounded edges and real geometry instead of flat texture maps.