Introducing my Manifold Library
3 minute read. Manifold is my computational geometry library - the beginnings of a CAD kernel of sorts. Its purpose is fast, reliable, topologically-sound operations on manifold triangle meshes. Reliability is really the key: I started this library because I was amazed at how unreliable the geometry kernels I had experienced (even high-end CAD) were in generating manifold - basically solid - output. The lack of reliability stems from the fact that Euclidean geometry is based on real numbers, but computers work in finite precision with rounding errors. This means it is entirely possible for a computer to find two points to be on the same side of a line, but their midpoint to be on the opposite side: Euclidean geometry does not hold. For this reason, many computational geometry libraries are proven correct for "general position" input, which means geometry where nothing is within rounding error of coincident, co-linear, or co-planar. This might be okay if the geometry were