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databasearchitecture3dsoftware-design3d-modelling

Why Database is not used with 3D and Drawing softwares (to store points and other primitive shapes)?


My question is why Databases are not used with Drawing, 3D Modelling, 3D Design, Game Engines and architecture etc. software to save the current state of the images or the stuff that is present on the screen or is the part of a project in a Database.

One obvious answer is the speed, the speed of retrieving or saving all the millions of triangles or points forming the geometry is very low, as there would be hundreds or thousands of queries per second, but is it really the cause? Considering the apparent advantages of using databases can allow sharing the design live over a network when it is being saved at a common location, and more than one people can work on it at a time or can use can give live feedback when something is being designed when it is being shared, specially when time based update is used, such as update after every 5 or 10 seconds, which is not as good as live synchronization, but should be quick enough. What is the basic problem in the use of Databases in this type of software that caused them not to be used this way, or new algorithms or techniques not being developed or studied for optimizing the benefits of using them this way? And why this idea wasn't researched a lot.


Solution

  • The short answer is essentially speed. The speed of writing information to a disk drive is an order of magnitude slower than writing it to ram. The speed of network access is in turn an order of magnitude slower than writing or reading a hard disk. Live sharing apps like the one you describe are indeed possible though, but wouldn't necessarily require what you would call a "database", nor would using a database be such a great idea. The reason more don't exist is that they are actually fiendishly difficult to program. Programming by itself is difficult enough, even just thinking in a straight line, with a single narrative. But to program something like that requires you to be able to accurately visualise multiple parallel dimensions acting on the same data simultaneously, without breaking anything. This is actually difficult.