Julian Knodt

My Github!
Email: julianknodtgmail.com

Hey, I’m a programmer who is interested in a myriad number of things! I’m broadly interested in graphics (physically based rendering), compilers (Rust!), operating systems, and how people interact with social networks. I also dabble in machine learning, when it’s small enough to run on my 2010 GPU.

Outside of programming, I try to spend my time attempting to cook and bake, taking stupidly long walks around my neighborhood, and fencing. I’m still exploring many new activities 🙇, so if there’s anything neat to do feel free to reach out.

If you’re looking to collaborate on something, want to get coffee/tea, or are just generally interested in chatting, email me! I’m all over the place, but am currently near Seattle for a brief stint, but am usually in the Bay Area.

If you have any comments or questions on my writing, go to the github repo for this page, and file an issue, or make a pull request! I’ll get to ‘em eventually.

Writings: Projects:

Writings:	Projects:
Random Sparsity Pattern Ideas Exploration of idea for sparsity in matrices, random thoughts. Unrealistic Algorithmic Analysis I’m a bit disappointed in how big `O` analysis is often not useful, because it ends up ignoring the architecture of computers and how data caches work. This is a rant about how there may be more feasible ways to measure complexity, by keeping costs of different operations such as arithmetic/memory accesses separate. Useless blog posts A meta blog post about blog posts which have no meaning, i.e. the 10th blog to explain React. A way to reduce Registry Bloat An intro to Raytracing Graphics Problems Why I learned Rust and Why I work on it Bezier Spline NeRFs Classes 2024 Weekly Writings	Ink Renderer Github Final Project for graphics Square Heap An experiment with modifying the number of children for a heap. See readme for more info Mireba A photorealistic raytracer based on Mitsuba. WIP. quick maths A simple math library for use with mireba. Hopefully I can continue to upgrade to be more full-fledged for general purpose use but right now it’s designed for graphics. Mat-FST An experiment for using Finite State Transducers as sparse matrices. Check out the readme for more info. Small-SAT A concurrent SAT solver based on MiniSAT. Exploring the idea of having multiple threads, but would’ve been a lot better if I had known Rust better at the time. Still learned a lot from it though. artPanel A fun CLI util to render images in terminal with color. If you’re in terminal all the time and find it bland you can run this in the background to lighten things up.

Random Sparsity Pattern Ideas
- Exploration of idea for sparsity in matrices, random thoughts.
Unrealistic Algorithmic Analysis
- I’m a bit disappointed in how big O analysis is often not useful, because it ends up ignoring the architecture of computers and how data caches work. This is a rant about how there may be more feasible ways to measure complexity, by keeping costs of different operations such as arithmetic/memory accesses separate.
Useless blog posts
- A meta blog post about blog posts which have no meaning, i.e. the 10th blog to explain React.
A way to reduce Registry Bloat
An intro to Raytracing

Ink Renderer
- Github
- Final Project for graphics
Square Heap
- An experiment with modifying the number of children for a heap. See readme for more info
Mireba
- A photorealistic raytracer based on Mitsuba. WIP.
quick maths
- A simple math library for use with mireba. Hopefully I can continue to upgrade to be more full-fledged for general purpose use but right now it’s designed for graphics.
Mat-FST
- An experiment for using Finite State Transducers as sparse matrices. Check out the readme for more info.
Small-SAT
- A concurrent SAT solver based on MiniSAT. Exploring the idea of having multiple threads, but would’ve been a lot better if I had known Rust better at the time. Still learned a lot from it though.
artPanel
- A fun CLI util to render images in terminal with color. If you’re in terminal all the time and find it bland you can run this in the background to lighten things up.

Games

I’m trying to get into making my own little games using Pico-8, which is a fantastic little game maker and way to run games. I’ve had moderate success, but will share what I make here!

Starmine
- A space shooter resource gathering game
Sozu
- A Sozu (deer-scare) simulator
Slime Ball
- Kick a ball around as a slime
Infinite Runner
- The first Pico-8 game I made (2019)
- Revived thanks to help from the Pico-8 forum!
- Jump around, jump up, jump up, and get down

Work History

For those interested in hiring me, I’ve worked at a variety of places, on system software, and am mostly interested in backend/low-level software or research!

Where I've worked:

Internships:

Winter thru Summer ‘17: Brigade

Android Development (Kotlin) & GraphQL (Node) + Ruby on Rails

Summer ‘18: Paypal

GraphQL (Node)

Summer ‘19: Google

Testing liveliness of servers (Golang)

Summer ‘21: Tailscale

Add new port mapping protocols, Routing Server metrics (Golang)
See commits here

Research:

While the line between research and normal programming can be blurry, there are some things which are clearly research. While these are definitely “research”, usually I find just messing around with code can be close to research in its own way.

Summer ‘20: Princeton Computational Imaging Lab

Mitsuba implement time of flight gating (C++)

Arxiv!

2023: new Joint UV Optimization and Texture Baking

Julian Knodt, Zherong Pan, Kui Wu, Xifeng Gao
ACM
Blog Post

Other Stuff

I also have been keeping a playlist for 7 years! This is the accumulation of some of the music I’ve been listening to since the end of high-school, and it at times reflects the emotions I felt while living my life. In that way, I consider it a summary of how I’ve felt over the past 7 years, so I hope that while listening to it, you can experience some of what I’ve felt.

Links!

https://math.mit.edu/~byronc/index.html