Re:Show HN: Hypercamera – a browser-based 4D camera simulator
by nerdsniper on Monday November 24, 2025 @10:41PM
(#46042138)
The camera is capturing a 3D projection of a 4D universe. Just as our own cameras capture a 2D projection of a 3D universe.
It's confusing not just because hyperdimensions are inherently confusing to humans, but also because the resulting 3D projection is then reduced to a 2D projection by our computer screens. Just know that the representation is of a 3D projection that you can explore in the same way as any other 3D world inside of a computer game - until you rotate in the ana/kata axes, which will change the 3D universe.
It gets a bit easier to play the game if you hit "v" to enable additional orthogonal projections.
Re:Show HN: Hypercamera – a browser-based 4D camera simulator
by gpm on Monday November 24, 2025 @11:28PM
(#46042335)
Hmm, I wonder if also having a normal 3d camera that projects to 1d view (i.e. a line) would be a useful teaching aid for this... or if it would just be equally confusing in different ways.
Re:Show HN: Hypercamera – a browser-based 4D camera simulator
by beaumayns on Tuesday November 25, 2025 @09:46AM
(#46046224)
Very cool! I made a similar thing[1], but I didn't put as much attention on the controls or the camera concept. I had hoped to gain some intuitive understanding of 4D space, but in the end I did not succeed.
How did you do collision detection and physics here?
It's confusing not just because hyperdimensions are inherently confusing to humans, but also because the resulting 3D projection is then reduced to a 2D projection by our computer screens. Just know that the representation is of a 3D projection that you can explore in the same way as any other 3D world inside of a computer game - until you rotate in the ana/kata axes, which will change the 3D universe.
It gets a bit easier to play the game if you hit "v" to enable additional orthogonal projections.
How did you do collision detection and physics here?
1. https://beaumayns.github.io/box4d/