Yet another chainsaw massacre.
One of the most obnoxious annoyances with C++ metaprogramming
is the need to insert `typename` and `template` qualifiers into
most definitions, to help the compiler to cope with the syntax,
which is not context-free.
The recent standards adds several clarifications, so that most
of these qualifiers are redundant now, at least at places where
it is unambiguously clear that only a type can be given.
GCC already supports most of these relaxing rules
(Clang unfortunately lags way behind with support of newer language features...)
This is a first step towards the ability to produce several different output formats...
Refactor the code to separate
- the double buffering
- the actual image generation, which works in RGB
- the conversion routine
Furthermore, replace unsigned char by std::byte
and introduce std::array and structured binding
to avoid many usages of pointers; hopefully this
makes the intention of the code clearer.
Verified and cross-checked the actual converion logic;
in fact this is a conversion to "YUV" as used by MPEG,
which in more precise terms is Y'CrCb with Rec.601 colour space
and a scan range limitation (16...235) on the Luma component.
* Lumiera source code always was copyrighted by individual contributors
* there is no entity "Lumiera.org" which holds any copyrights
* Lumiera source code is provided under the GPL Version 2+
== Explanations ==
Lumiera as a whole is distributed under Copyleft, GNU General Public License Version 2 or above.
For this to become legally effective, the ''File COPYING in the root directory is sufficient.''
The licensing header in each file is not strictly necessary, yet considered good practice;
attaching a licence notice increases the likeliness that this information is retained
in case someone extracts individual code files. However, it is not by the presence of some
text, that legally binding licensing terms become effective; rather the fact matters that a
given piece of code was provably copyrighted and published under a license. Even reformatting
the code, renaming some variables or deleting parts of the code will not alter this legal
situation, but rather creates a derivative work, which is likewise covered by the GPL!
The most relevant information in the file header is the notice regarding the
time of the first individual copyright claim. By virtue of this initial copyright,
the first author is entitled to choose the terms of licensing. All further
modifications are permitted and covered by the License. The specific wording
or format of the copyright header is not legally relevant, as long as the
intention to publish under the GPL remains clear. The extended wording was
based on a recommendation by the FSF. It can be shortened, because the full terms
of the license are provided alongside the distribution, in the file COPYING.
After augmenting our `lib/random.hpp` abstraction framework to add the necessary flexibility,
a common seeding scheme was ''built into the Test-Runner.''
* all tests relying on some kind of randomness should invoke `seedRand()`
* this draws a seed from the `entropyGen` — which is also documented in the log
* individual tests can now be launched with `--seed` to force a dedicated seed
* moreover, tests should build a coherent structure of linked generators,
especially when running concurrently. The existing tests were adapted accordingly
All usages of `rand()` in the code base were investigated and replaced
by suitable calls to our abstraction framework; the code base is thus
isolated from the actual implementation, simplifying further adaptation.
A deeper investigation revealed that we can show the result of glitches
for each relevant situation, simply by scrutinising the produced distribution.
Even the 64-bit-Variant shows a skewed distribuion, in spite of all numbers
being within definition range.
So the conclusion is: we can expect tilted results, but in many cases
this might not be an issue, if the result range is properly wrapped / clipped.
Notably this is the case if we just want to inject a randomised sleep into a multithreaded test setup
Build a self-contained test case to document these findings.
Further investigation shows that the ''data type used for computation'' plays a crucial role.
The (recommended) 64bit mersenne twister uses the full value range of the working data type,
which on a typical 64bit system is also `uint64_t`. In this case, values corrupted by concurrency
go unnoticed. This can be **verified empirically** : the distribution
of shifts from the theoretical mean value is in the expected low range < 2‰
However, when using the 32bit mersenne engine, the working data type is still uint64_t.
In this case a **significant number of glitches** can be shown empricially.
When drawing 1 Million values, in 80% of all runs at least one glitch and up to 5 glitches
can happen, and the mean values are **significantly skewed**
''In theory,'' the random number generators are in no way threadsafe,
neither the old `rand()`, nor the mersenne twister of the C++ standard.
However, since all we want is some arbitrarily diffused numbers,
chances are that this issue can be safely ignored; because a random
number computation broken by concurrency will most likely generate --
well, a garbled number or "randomly" corrupted internal state.
Validating this reasoning by an empiric investigation seems advisable though.
