feat: a plot can carry a phosphor density, one image for every acquisition

`Plot::set_density()` gives a plot a **phosphor density**: a screen-sized intensity image behind
its traces, into which each acquisition is deposited and which fades by a time constant or by a
per-acquisition factor. It is the library's and not a host's because the library is the side that
knows a trace's device geometry -- a host would be re-rasterising traces the renderer has already
staged, at a second derivation of the same mapping.

It is an **image and not a set of retained traces**, and that is the whole of its cost: one `f32`
cell per device pixel of the axes rect (`DensityGrid`), a cell's value a *number of sweeps*, so a
display of a thousand acquisitions costs what one costs and there is no depth to get wrong.
Measured on a 640x360 viewport's axes: **573x313 = 179 349 cells, 717 396 bytes** of grid, and one
byte per cell uploaded on the frame the grid moved.

- `Plot::accumulate_density()` deposits the acquisition on screen: every visible trace's window is
  mapped to sample indices and gathered exactly as `Renderer::draw_traces()` maps it, then walked
  column by column -- so the deposit is bounded by the axes' columns and not by the samples behind
  them -- and a cell takes **1.0 once per trace per sweep**, however many of that trace's own
  samples crossed it. Counting the hits instead put a single dense sweep at the ceiling of the
  brightness scale and hid the sweeps behind it, and it made a cell mean "how much the beam moved
  here" rather than "how many acquisitions were here"; the dedupe is a stamp per grid *row* (one
  `u64`, keyed by trace and column) so two sweeps agreeing on a cell still count twice. Dwell is a
  different question the library already answers (`Style::intensity_grading`).
- `decay_density(dt_s)` fades by the clock, `clear_density()` and switching the density off drop
  the image at once. `DensityConfig` carries `full_scale` and `gamma`, applied on the CPU when the
  grid changed: the value a host reads back through `ink()`/`peak()` and the picture it sees are
  one derivation, and a frame whose grid did not move skips the conversion and the upload entirely
  (`FrameStats::density_cells`/`density_upload_bytes`, the latter the *frame's* total over every
  row, which one row's assignment used to overwrite).
- The renderer draws it as one attribute-less quad over the axes rect (`kDensityVS`/`kDensityFS`,
  `DensityProgram`), over the grid and the invalid-span bands and **under the traces**, inside the
  axes' clip: it reserves no layout space and nothing on it can be picked, exactly as
  `Plot::set_invalid_spans()` does. `Style::density` is its tint.
- The two fades are the two questions a persistence display can be asked -- "still visible a second
  later" and "the N-th back is gone" -- so the choice is the caller's.

Six cases, all in the suite: four plot-level ones (the grid's resolution and memory, the
per-acquisition schedule **584 -> 876 -> 1022** ink with `peak_steady=2.000`, `exp(-dt/tau)` off
the ink, and the deposit's own geometry including a NaN as a gap) and one on the real driver
(`a_phosphor_density_is_drawn_under_the_traces`: `cells=179349 uploaded=179349` on the moved frame
and `uploaded=0` on the identical one after it, with the trace's stroke keeping its own colour over
the ink). The suite is **396 cases, 0 failed** and all four ctest entries pass.
This commit is contained in:
Martino Ferrari committed 2026-10-16 17:25:39 +02:00
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@@ -84,4 +84,36 @@ class TextProgram {
gl::Program program_;
};
/// Linked phosphor-density program and its uniform surface: one textured quad over a plot's
/// axes rect. It fails exactly the way the two above do, propagating `Unsupported` and
/// `GLFailure`.
///
/// It is the one pipeline with **no vertex data**: the quad's four corners come from
/// `gl_VertexID`, so a draw is one four-vertex strip whatever the grid's size and there is no
/// buffer to stage or upload. The density itself reaches the GPU as a texture -- one texel per
/// cell -- which is the one thing this pipeline has that the others do not.
///
/// `create()` also points the `u_density` sampler at texture unit 0, which is the unit
/// `plot::gl::Texture::bind()` defaults to, and leaves this program bound. The texture stays
/// with the caller, who owns its lifetime.
class DensityProgram {
public:
bool create(Status* st = nullptr) noexcept;
bool valid() const noexcept { return program_.id() != 0; }
void bind() const noexcept { program_.use(); }
/// `u_viewport`: render target size in pixels.
void set_viewport(Vec2 px) const noexcept;
/// `u_origin` and `u_size`: the quad in `Rect` pixels -- the axes rect's top-left corner and
/// the grid's own size, which is the axes rect in whole device pixels. They are two uniforms
/// rather than a rect because a `vec4` uniform would need a fourth setter shape for one
/// caller; a corner and a size are what the vertex shader builds the quad from anyway.
void set_rect(Vec2 origin, Vec2 size) const noexcept;
/// `u_color`: the tint the cells' luminances are multiplied into.
void set_color(Color color) const noexcept;
private:
gl::Program program_;
};
} // namespace plot::render