Indicatrix in the browser

1What it is

The web app is the same Indicatrix, compiled to run inside a browser page. You open a design file (or start a new one from a template), edit its cutting instructions, let the solver close the meet points, look at the stone as a solid, a faceting diagram and a spectral render, read off the optical figures, and save the design back to your disk as a download.

It runs entirely on your own machine. The page is a set of static files; once it has loaded, your designs, your settings and the rendering all stay in the browser and nothing is uploaded anywhere. There is no account.

2What it can do

Designs

Start a new design from the template gallery (an empty design plus five built-in templates). Open or import .asc, .gem, .gcs and Indicatrix's own .indicatrix.toml (alone, or together with its .asc), by file picker or by dragging files onto the page. Save .asc, the native pair, or the native file alone. The cutting sheet downloads as an HTML page and the faceting diagram as a PNG.

CAD editor

The tier table with inline angle editing, keyboard and Ctrl+wheel nudging, undo and redo; the four-tab inspector (Tier, Preform, Optimize, Schedule); design settings, including a compact custom-material editor; and the guided walkthrough, the same ten-step worked example as the desktop.

Mouse manipulation

In the Solid view, drag the angle, depth and index handles of a selected facet, or switch to Slice mode and cut a new facet by dragging a line across the stone. One drag is one undo step, and the design solves itself when you let go.

Solving

Solves run in a background Web Worker, so the page stays responsive, and can re-run automatically after each edit (auto-solve). Optimize and Retarget also run there with live progress, and Cancel stops the search between steps and keeps the best result found so far.

Rendering

A progressive spectral path-traced render on your CPU cores, with a denoise once the picture settles. It uses the same physics, the same material catalogue and the same lighting choices as the desktop app, and it can load an HDR environment map (see the limits below). Export the result as a PNG in sRGB or Display P3.

Views

The Render view, the Solid view (facet picking and selection linked to the tier table) and the Diagram view (crown, pavilion and profile panels).

Optical figures

The metrics readout (brilliance, fire, scintillation, windowing, extinction) and the Tilt Performance dialog: brilliance, windowing and extinction against tilt, four azimuths of 181 points each. Both run in their own worker, so they never wait behind a solve.

Session memory

Your settings, the current design and your place in the walkthrough are kept for the life of the browser tab, so a reload brings them back. Closing the tab clears them, so save your design as a download before you leave.

3What it cannot do yet

These are the differences from the desktop application, as of this beta. The right-hand column says where each one lives today.

4How it works

The desktop application and the web app are built from the same Rust code for the editor, the meet-point solver and the optics. The browser build compiles that code to WebAssembly and draws its interface with the same toolkit (Slint) inside a single canvas.

The heavy work runs in Web Workers so the page never freezes: rendering is spread over a pool of them, one per CPU core minus one, up to eight; solving, Optimize and Retarget share one more, and the optical figures have their own, so they never wait behind a solve. Rendering is the same spectral, polarization-aware path tracer, run on the CPU; there is no GPU involved.

Your work is kept in the browser tab's session storage (settings, the current design, walkthrough progress) and in the files you save. There is no server side to the app: no upload, no account, no design database.

5Browser requirements

A current desktop Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari. The page needs WebAssembly, Web Workers and WebGL 2 (used to draw the interface), and it uses sessionStorage if it is available. It does not need WebGPU, and it does not need any special server settings. If WebGL 2 is disabled, the page says so instead of starting.

A tablet works for viewing and tapping. Touch arrives as mouse events, so Ctrl or Shift gestures and the keyboard shortcuts need a keyboard; everything they do is also reachable from the menus and buttons.

6Limits

• Render speed. The desktop app can use the GPU; the browser renders on the CPU. A few hundred samples per pixel take tens of seconds to minutes depending on the machine and the size of the view, so expect it to be slower than the desktop's GPU path. The live view traces at most 960 pixels on its longest edge.
• Samples and export size. The live render takes 64 to 1024 samples per pixel. PNG export takes 16 to 4096 samples and up to 4096 pixels on the longest edge.
• HDR environment maps. A .hdr file is limited to 64 MiB and 8192 × 4096 texels in the browser. Each render worker keeps its own decoded copy, so a large map is used on fewer workers, with a message, rather than being downsampled.
• Long solves. A solve in the worker that runs for more than 60 seconds is stopped.
• Memory. Rendering is held to a fixed memory budget across the workers, which is why very large environment maps are limited.

7Get the desktop app

For the design library, the Rough planner, GPU rendering, remote rendering, Deep Solve, tilt video export and full-size master stills, use the desktop application. It installs from crates.io or builds from source; the commands are in the getting started section of the overview, and the application itself is described on the studio and CAD page. The two open the same files, so a design saved from the web app opens on the desktop and back.