Demo: Geodesic Heat

Demo and reference implementation of the heat method for approximating geodesic distance on triangle meshes.

Try it here: https://davreev.gitlab.io/demos/geodesic-heat/

Build

This project can be built to run natively or in a web browser. Build instructions vary slightly between the two targets.

Native Build

Build via cmake

⚠️ Currently only tested with Clang and GCC. MSVC is not supported.

mkdir build
cmake -S . -B ./build -G <generator>
cmake --build ./build [--config <config>]

Web Build

Download the Emscripten SDK and dot source the provided script to initialize the Emscripten toolchain

# Bash
EMSDK_DIR="absolute/path/of/emsdk/root"
. ./emsc-init.sh

# Powershell
$EMSDK_DIR="absolute/path/of/emsdk/root"
. ./emsc-init.ps1

Then build via emcmake

mkdir build 
emcmake cmake -S . -B ./build -G <generator>
cmake --build ./build [--config <config>]

Output can be served locally for testing e.g.

python -m http.server

Dependencies

The following build-time dependencies are expected to be installed locally:

• slangc (>= 2025.5.0)
• spirv-cross ( >= 2021.01.15)
• spirv-tools ( >= 2022.1)

Remaining build-time dependencies are fetched during CMake's configure step (see cmake/deps).