Tyler Morgan-Wall
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tylermw.com
Tyler Morgan-Wall
@tylermw.com
R, data science, dataviz, maps, experimental design, raytracing. Developer of rayshader, rayrender, and the rayverse | PhD in Physics from Johns Hopkins | Penn
Rendering the peak of Mount Everest from sunrise to sunset in R with rayshader and rayrender

#RStats #rayrender #rayshader #rayverse
November 9, 2025 at 4:41 AM
Good instinct! Don't do what I did and be seduced by the relative simplicity of the Felkel and Obdržálek algorithm and waste months trying to patch it to work robustly (turns out the alg isn't correct, and calculating a SS robustly can't be done with float/doubles, only exact arithmetic)
November 6, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Happy #rayrender Halloween indeed!

@tterence.bsky.social inspired me to whip up an animation: a pumpkin made entirely in rayrender! (CSG for the carved pumpkin, extruded path stem, cyl + sphere candle, and r_obj eyes)

Also, denoising made the below animation render in <3 minutes! #RStats
November 1, 2025 at 3:59 AM
"Man, I really wish RStudio respected hierarchy in code-folded section headers... I wonder how easy it would be to..."

(inner voice: DON'T DO IT! IT'S NOT WORTH IT! JUST GET BACK TO WORK! THE YAK IS BEST LEFT UNSHORN!)

"... I'm gonna do it."

#RStats #RStudio
October 10, 2025 at 12:55 PM
4/5 As an extreme example, you can plot the analemmas for noon and see that it's below the horizon for part of the year in the arctics: this is when those latitudes are in the long polar night! (the crazy looping around latitude = 0 is just from a singularity due to the spherical-to-rect projection)
August 19, 2025 at 2:13 PM
3/5 The orientation and position of the analemma depends on your latitude and the specific time of day. Here's the analemma for 5 PM taken from the South Pole to the North Pole in 10 degree increments. When it is partially below the horizon, it means the sun has set by that time for part of the year
August 19, 2025 at 2:13 PM