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MathBox 2

acko.net

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Re: MathBox 2

#51

Post by teamonkey »

reedlaw wrote: post #36

> Please view in Chrome or Firefox. Chrome is glitchy, Firefox is stuttery. I really want to get behind WebGL, but when is it going to have decent performance/compatibility? I tried this out in both FF and Chrome on a powerful desktop computer (i5-4670K, GTX760, 16GB RAM) and it was glitchy/stuttery as described. Firefox rendered some scenes at what seemed like 2-3 FPS. Chrome was much smoother, but I couldn't tell w…

Runs OK on my Surface Pro 2. Core i5, Intel GMA, 4GB of shared RAM.

There were some places where the framerate dropped but they were the more complex demos. The fan kicked in almost immediately though. In general, even if the framerate was low it was stable.

Interestingly IE11 seemed to render almost as well as Chrome and I didn't notice a speed difference. I guess that's what happens if you offload work to the GPU.

Re: MathBox 2

#53

Post by unconed »

vosper wrote: post #41

This is great (really, it is), but showing off a "classic demoscene water effect" that was classic in 1996 serves as much to highlight how far WebGL has to go as much as what can be done with it.

You're kind of missing the point. Doing a single classic demoscene effect is indeed trivial. Doing arbitrary multi-stage, multi-frame video feedback effects is not, and you'd need to write dozens of lines of unique GL API code for each stage. Avoiding that work is what this is about.

The fact that computer graphics from 1996 are still taught as if it was 1996 should be greater cause for concern. Or that math from the 19th century is taught as if it's the 19th century.

See: http://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-fractal/

Re: MathBox 2

#54

Post by clebio »

unconed wrote: post #37
jschrf wrote: post #32

Any plans for Oculus support? I'm building a code analysis framework with a visualization tool and if MathBox were to support the Rift it would be a no-brainer over using raw SVG or D3.

MathBox 2 is built on top of threestrap (don't google it, you get shoes), to enable exactly this kind of extensibility without me having to do it all myself. Just by following a few basic conventions (e.g. binding the VR headset to three.camera), it should just work. Haven't tried it yet, too much to do, but I do know these guys who have a mocap studio being repurposed for free-walking VR experiments using a wireless…

I've used Mathbox some, and am still trying to get more familiar with it. Is MathBox 2 architecturally separate, or will the original Mathbox become a subset of MB2? I'll just keep plugging away at MB (the 1st).

The comparison to D3js seems apt. MathBox is -- somewhat -- a 3D version of what D3 does. But D3 takes a bring-your-own-data approach, whereas mathbox is more directly about defining the mathematical structures. Both are fairly low-level. Mathbox is more opinionated, maybe. Vega might be a more direct comparison [1].

[1]: https://github.com/trifacta/vega/wiki/Vega-and-D3

Re: MathBox 2

#55

Post by elsigh »

reedlaw wrote: post #36

> Please view in Chrome or Firefox. Chrome is glitchy, Firefox is stuttery. I really want to get behind WebGL, but when is it going to have decent performance/compatibility? I tried this out in both FF and Chrome on a powerful desktop computer (i5-4670K, GTX760, 16GB RAM) and it was glitchy/stuttery as described. Firefox rendered some scenes at what seemed like 2-3 FPS. Chrome was much smoother, but I couldn't tell w…

I viewed this whole presentation on a MacBook Air plugged into a 32" monitor, and while 1 or 2 of the slides would pause here and there, overall it was amazingly smooth. Mind blown.

Re: MathBox 2

#56

Post by saidajigumi »

unconed wrote: post #49
judk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you the unconed from TermKit? What's its status?

Right now, very dead. It was more of an idea than a real thing, badly architected, but with some good ideas waiting to be reimplemented on a non 0.x stack. Still perpetually disappointed every new "neo terminal" is monospace tho.

> Still perpetually disappointed every new "neo terminal" is monospace tho.

Have you thought of ways around the path dependence[1] on monospace imposed by existing bodies of textmode UIs (and source code)? It seems unlikely that a new terminal-esque tool would succeed without some kind of legacy support. The best concept I've come up so far with is to build in affordances which handle legacy vs. new-world user interaction and app I/O models.

Related, I continue to hold out (vain) hope that elastic tabstops[2] will someday gain traction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence

[2] http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/

Re: MathBox 2

#57

Post by elsigh »

reedlaw wrote: post #36

> Please view in Chrome or Firefox. Chrome is glitchy, Firefox is stuttery. I really want to get behind WebGL, but when is it going to have decent performance/compatibility? I tried this out in both FF and Chrome on a powerful desktop computer (i5-4670K, GTX760, 16GB RAM) and it was glitchy/stuttery as described. Firefox rendered some scenes at what seemed like 2-3 FPS. Chrome was much smoother, but I couldn't tell w…

I viewed this whole presentation on a MacBook Air plugged into a 32" monitor, and while 1 or 2 of the slides would pause here and there, overall it was amazingly smooth. Mind blown.

Re: MathBox 2

#58

Post by anigbrowl »

It's driven by code though, it's not a graphical UI.

I hoe someone builds the latter on top of it, since the flow-based paradigm is so effective in these contexts. Excellent presentation.

Re: MathBox 2

#59

Post by vosper »

unconed wrote: post #53
vosper wrote: post #41

This is great (really, it is), but showing off a "classic demoscene water effect" that was classic in 1996 serves as much to highlight how far WebGL has to go as much as what can be done with it.

You're kind of missing the point. Doing a single classic demoscene effect is indeed trivial. Doing arbitrary multi-stage, multi-frame video feedback effects is not, and you'd need to write dozens of lines of unique GL API code for each stage. Avoiding that work is what this is about. The fact that computer graphics from 1996 are still taught as if it was 1996 should be greater cause for concern. Or that math from the…

Fair point, and I should have made my comment clearly about WebGL, rather than the work of the author in creating this post - that is very impressive.

What I really wanted to say is that I still find it disappointing that after so long WebGL seems to made so little progress when compared to any game running on the same underlying hardware. I'm happy that the graphics can be constructed more elegantly, but I wish they didn't stutter, stumble, and drive my computer fan to max.

Re: MathBox 2

#60

Post by malandrew »

mck- wrote: post #24

His website [1] is one of the most impressive websites on the internet. Famo.us got nothin' on him! First time I heard about Steven was when I saw this [2] post last year.. the best part is that he leaves many easter eggs or "achievements" around for you to discover :) [1] acko.net [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6268610

While we (at famo.us) have had our fair share of neckbeard faux pas, we and Steven are both fighting for the same future of the web; one where more sane low level primitives, such as a proper scene graph, are exposed to developers as a foundation upon which we can build better libraries and frameworks like MathBox 2. [0][1]

These is no need to make this into a pissing contest or a rivalry. We're fans of Steven's work and incredibly impressed with how he has pushed the state of the art on the web forward. Anyone who works on the bleeding edge like this helps build a brighter future for the web and creates more knowledge upon which others may build. Anyways, please keep the discussion focused on what Steven has achieved here instead of trolling.

Steven, many kudos for this. Extraordinary work.

[0] http://acko.net/blog/shadow-dom/

[1] http://extensiblewebmanifesto.org/

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