dotnet-daily-tips

047 - SIMD

SIMD is an acronym that stand for single-instruction, multiple-data instructions accelerated by the hardware that allow performing the same instruction with a single opcode on multiple data input.

In .NET those instructions are locates in the System.Numerics namespace. Let’s start with checking the types that are available at our disposal:

• 👉 Vector2, Vector3, Vector4 - can represent accordingly 2,3 or 4 float values.
• 👉 Matrix3x2, Matrix4x4 - can represent matrices 3x2 and 4x4
• 👉 Plane - can represent a 3d plane object
• 👉 Quaternion - for rotations in 3d space
• 👉 Vector<T> - generic type that allows vector of specific type

Docs: 📑 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/simd

using System.Numerics;

// 3d vectors
var v1 = new Vector3(0.1f, 0.2f, 0.3f);
var v2 = new Vector3(1.1f, 2.2f, 3.3f);
var result = v1 + v2;

// plane
var plane = new Plane(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 10.0f);

// Identity 4x4 matrix
var identity = Matrix4x4.Identity;

// Vector of values of type int
Vector<int> v = new Vector<int>(new[] {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8});