Anthony Thibault

About

I’m a software engineer based in San Francisco, CA specializing in developing technology for video games and virtual reality. My passion is applying my experience in real-time 3D graphics and animation to emerging platforms such as VR and spatial computing.

Professional Projects

My professional work experience is available here in PDF form or via Google Docs.

Personal projects

Splatapult

I’ve always been fascinated by Photogrammetry and 3d scanning technology, but after seeing the recent success of AI/ML techniques, such as NeRF and Instant-NGP, I decided to do my own R&D in this space. Specifically, I wrote a 3D Gaussian Splatting renderer capable of viewing these scenes in VR. There’s something magical about viewing these scenes in a VR headset, it gives a sense of being in a real space. These scenes are pretty easy to capture now with a mobile phone, using apps like Luma AI or Poly-Cam. Here’s a quick demo of Splatapult.

Splatapult is open source under the MIT license. It’s written in C++ using OpenGL and OpenXR. Windows binaries zip.

Circull

I developed a mobile game inspired by the artwork of M.C. Escher, specifically his application of tiling figures in hyperbolic geometry. Not being a trained mathematician, learning the underlying theory was challenging but rewarding. Using my research, I created custom tools and artwork to complete this project in 2010.

Recently, I recompiled the old C++ code into JavaScript using emscripten, this game is now fully playable in your browser here.

Riftty

In 2012, I was one of the lucky backers of the original Oculus Rift kickstarter. I was so excited about the potential for developing software while in VR. I created a custom terminal application for the DK1 running on Apple macOS. I learned some cool techniques to maximize the quality and legibility of text in VR. As well as some important lessons in ergonomics. While it sounds fun to edit your code on a 50 foot billboard sized screen, in practice it can lead to a stiff neck.

Abaci

I developed a header-only C++ library for 3D math. Specifically targeted to 3D rendering and gameplay. I’ve since moved on to the more standard glm library, but I still use it occasionally.

GlyphBlaster

I undertook this project to improve the quality of text in my personal projects. It was inspired by the State of Text Rendering article by Behdad Esfahbod. My goal wasto create the highest quality text rendering I could in OpenGL, including full unicode support including glyph-shaping and right to left languages. I integrated several open source libraries such as FreeType2, HarfBuzz and ICU to achieve my goal. This project was later used in Riftty.