Typed Arrays

Key JamJar geometry objects use typed arrays behind the scenes, such as Vector, Polygon, Matrix3D and Matrix4D.

What are typed arrays?

From the MDN docs:

JavaScript typed arrays are array-like objects that provide a mechanism for reading and writing raw binary data in memory buffers.

The typed array used extensively through JamJar is the Float32Array, this provides an acceptable level of precision, while also integrating easily and nicely with WebGL2.

These typed arrays allow more control over the memory of arrays, allowing for performance improvements with the cost of a loss of flexibility.

Why typed arrays?

Typed arrays such as Float32Array provide some nice benefits over storing simply as number or a normal JS array:

• Better control over memory.
• Fast indexing, opportunity for performance improvements.
• Integrates with WebGL(2) with no need for (slow) conversions.

Much of the reasoning behind typed arrays are based on the super useful gl-matrix library and this nice set of slides explaining some of the rationale behind how that library is built.

How does this affect how geometry objects are used?

This ultimately doesn't affect the geometry objects, the typed arrays are wrapped in class definitions and surrounded by a more intuiative API, rather than direct array access.