rtcNewSharedBuffer(3)

💖 rtcNewSharedBuffer(3) — the Embree glow-up you asked for 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because today we're learning about rtcNewSharedBuffer, which lives in section 3 of the manual and is genuinely one of the most chill functions in the whole Embree Ray Tracing Kernels 4 lineup. it's giving "I don't do much but I do it flawlessly" energy and honestly? iconic. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

rtcNewSharedBuffer — creates a new shared data buffer. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it beautifully. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <embree4/rtcore.h>

RTCBuffer rtcNewSharedBuffer(
  RTCDevice device,
  void* ptr,
  size_t byteSize
);

look at that signature. three little arguments. no cap, she's lowkey elegant. 🎀

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the tea, bestie. rtcNewSharedBuffer creates a brand-new shared data buffer object, and that object is bound to the device you hand it in the device argument. one device, one buffer, committed relationship, periodt. 👑

the buffer object is reference counted, and it starts life with an initial reference count of 1. when you're done with it, you release it using the rtcReleaseBuffer function. that's the whole lifecycle — born with a count of one, freed when you say so. ✨

at construction time you pass in a pointer to the buffer data that you manage (the ptr argument), plus how big that data is in bytes (the byteSize argument). and here's the part that makes her "shared": at buffer construction time, no buffer data is allocated at all — instead, the buffer data your application already provided is just... used. she borrows your fit, she doesn't buy her own. 🙈

💀 REAL TALK WARNING: the buffer data must remain valid for as long as the buffer may be used, and you are the one responsible for freeing the buffer data when it's no longer required. Embree is not your mom, she is not cleaning up after you. do not free it early, do not let it wander off. 😭

also the data pointer (the ptr argument) must be aligned to 4 bytes — otherwise the rtcNewSharedBuffer function will fail. 4 bytes. not 3, not 5. alignment is a vibe check and she does not negotiate. 🧚

✨ EXIT STATUS ✨

on failure, NULL is returned and an error code is set that you can query using rtcGetDeviceError. so if you get a NULL back, don't spiral — just go ask rtcGetDeviceError what happened. she'll tell you everything. 💜

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• rtcNewSharedBufferHostDevice
• rtcRetainBuffer
• rtcReleaseBuffer

the whole friend group fr fr, go read them too 🫶

and that's the page, bestie! this one came straight out of the Embree Ray Tracing Kernels 4 manual, and it's rtcNewSharedBuffer(3) — go forth and share your buffers responsibly. slay, stay aligned, and always free your data. 💖🌸🌈⭐👑