Overview

Bitloop is a modular cross-platform CMake project manager tailored toward scientific simulations/visualizations and rapid prototyping.

Web Demo - Example Gallery

For help getting started, view the Wiki:

• Building projects
  • Building from source on Windows / Linux (todo: update)
  • Building with Emscripten (todo: update)
  • Creating a standalone project with the command-line tool (todo: update)
• Tutorials (todo):
  • Creating a simple "Hello World" project
  • Using ImGui to control Scene variables (safely with multithreading)
  • User input and world navigation

Main Features

• Projects are modular and can include each other as dependencies in a tree structure
  • Child projects can be opened and compiled as standalone projects
  • Cross-platform: Windows, Linux, Emscripten
  • Designed for heavy per‑frame computations (e.g. Mandelbrot zoom)
• C++ NanoVG wrapper with integrated 128-bit float support (f128 class)
  • If you have prior experience with HTML Canvas drawing, this should feel second-nature to you
• FFmpeg video recording without blocking the UI (Desktop only)
• WebP snapshots / animations (all platforms).

Design Principles

• Organization
  • Using CMake, you can create an empty bitloop project (e.g. "Science"), and include several subprojects ("Physics", "Biology") where you can create further subprojects
  • You can build any subtree of projects (e.g. just "Biology") in to a single final executable
  • All project data (images, audio, etc) are bundled into the final executable automatically
• Library Management
  • All bitloop projects use vcpkg as a package manager (vcpkg is fetched automatically for the current workspace)
  • Shared binaries - all projects in a workspace will share the same vcpkg instance and binaries to prevent unnecessary rebuilds
    • To create a workspace, simply add a ".bitloop-workspace" file in a project directory.
      • For the root workspace folder, add: "root=TRUE"
      • For child workspaces, add: "root=FALSE"
    • vcpkg will be automatically cloned in to the highest level folder containing a ".bitloop-workspace" file (but not above the root workspace)

Layout

By default, projects contain a simple built-in viewport and sidebar for custom ImGui controls, along with a handy collection of tools/libraries.

Development progress

Building

	Windows	Linux
Modular nested projects	✔️	✔️
Standalone projects (with child projects as dependencies)	✔️	✔️
C++23 support	✔️	✔️
Visual Studio	✔️	✔️
Visual Studio Code	partial	partial

Architecture

	Windows	Linux	Web (Emscripten)
Multithreading	✔️	✔️	✔️ (pthreads with COOP/COEP Headers)
128-bit float support (f128)	✔️	✔️	✔️

Graphics

	Windows	Linux	Web (Emscripten)
High-DPI support	✔️	✔️	✔️
Mulitple Viewports (Split Screen)	✔️	✔️	✔️
2D Viewport (NanoVG wrapper)	✔️	✔️	✔️
3D Viewport	N/A	N/A	N/A

Recording / Image Capture

	Windows	Linux	Web (Emscripten)
Custom-resolution image renders	✔️	✔️	✔️
FFmpeg recording	✔️	✔️	N/A
WEBP animations	✔️	✔️	✔️

Other planned features

	Windows	Linux	Web (Emscripten)
Timeline (keyframed variables, tweens, etc)	N/A	N/A	N/A

Example snapshots / WebP animations