Asked claude.ai for a wrapper around the DataView class - results were interesting

DataViewAs.js

// Data type ranges and normalization functions
const DATA_RANGES = {
    'int8': [-128, 127],
    'uint8': [0, 255],
    'int16': [-32768, 32767],
    'uint16': [0, 65535],
    'int32': [-2147483648, 2147483647],
    'uint32': [0, 4294967295],
};

const TYPE_SIZES = {
    'int8': 1, 'uint8': 1,
    'int16': 2, 'uint16': 2,
    'int32': 4, 'uint32': 4,
};

const GET_METHODS = {
    'int8': 'getInt8',
    'uint8': 'getUint8',
    'int16': 'getInt16',
    'uint16': 'getUint16',
    'int32': 'getInt32',
    'uint32': 'getUint32',
};

// Create normalization functions for each data type
const createNormalizer = (dataType) => {
    const [min, max] = DATA_RANGES[dataType];
    const oorange = 2 / (max - min);
    return value => ((value - min) * oorange) - 1;
};

// Create a data reader function for specific type and endianness
const createDataReader = (view, dataType, isLittleEndian) => {
    const method = GET_METHODS[dataType];
    const fn = view[method].bind(view);
    return offset => fn(offset, isLittleEndian);
};

function processDataAs(buffer, dataType, isLittleEndian) {
    
    const view = new DataView(buffer);
    const points = [];
    const colors = [];
    
    const typeSize = TYPE_SIZES[dataType];
    const maxTuples = Math.floor(buffer.byteLength / (typeSize * 3));
    
    // Create optimized functions outside the loop
    const normalize = createNormalizer(dataType);
    const readData = createDataReader(view, dataType, isLittleEndian);
    
    let baseOffset = 0;

    try {

        for (let i = 0; i < maxTuples; i++) {
            // Read and normalize coordinates
            const x = normalize(readData(baseOffset)); baseOffset += typeSize;
            const y = normalize(readData(baseOffset)); baseOffset += typeSize;
            const z = normalize(readData(baseOffset)); baseOffset += typeSize;
            
            points.push(x, y, z);
            colors.push( (x+1)/2, (y+1)/2, (z+1)/2 );
        }

    } catch (e) {

        console.error('Error reading data at offset:', baseOffset);

    }

    return { points, colors, numPoints: points.length / 3 };
}