We closed this forum 18 June 2010. It has served us well since 2005 as the ALPHA forum did before it from 2002 to 2005. New discussions are ongoing at the new URL http://forum.processing.org. You'll need to sign up and get a new user account. We're sorry about that inconvenience, but we think it's better in the long run. The content on this forum will remain online.
Index › Discussion › Exhibition › Simple Galaxy
‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Simple Galaxy (Read 2881 times)
JohnG
Simple Galaxy
Jun 24th, 2008, 5:28pm  
Finally found some time to actually do something with processing, and I decided to have a play with large number of points, using OpenGL and Vertex Buffers and the like, and came up with this: http://www.hardcorepawn.com/galaxy/

I think the source is fairly simple if anyone wants to have a go messing around with it, but it shows just how much performance you can get out of processing/OpenGL if you know the right magic to put in. This has 200,000 points and runs happily at 60fps on my computer with a not very powerful video card.
Back to top
 
 
Classiclll
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #1 - Jun 24th, 2008, 5:53pm  
beautifle bentch!
2fps on my MacMini G4 1.42GHz, 1GB
Back to top
 
WWW  
REAS
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #2 - Jun 25th, 2008, 7:25am  
This is one exciting future direction for Processing. I hope to see more programs that use these techniques. Thanks for sharing.
Back to top
 
WWW  
introspector
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #3 - Jun 25th, 2008, 9:56am  
nice work...  i'm learning a lot from this code so thanks for sharing.
Back to top
 
http://www.introspector.be && http://www.fabriek.org/ && http://www.flickr.com/photos/21825226@N05 && http://www.mmblog.be/
WWW  
JohnG
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #4 - Jun 25th, 2008, 11:59am  
I've added a new version which is actually closer to my original idea before I got distracted by the idea of a galaxy:
http://www.hardcorepawn.com/pointCloudRandom/

Now with 2 modes, centred and un-centred.
Back to top
 
 
introspector
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #5 - Jun 26th, 2008, 1:30am  
damm... realy like this version!

from your first example i was sort getting the idea that this kind of thing would be possible!

i tried animating some of this... but its is kind of slow. probably my understaning of bytebuffer thing that is lacking...

thanks again for sharing.
Back to top
 
http://www.introspector.be && http://www.fabriek.org/ && http://www.flickr.com/photos/21825226@N05 && http://www.mmblog.be/
WWW  
JohnG
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #6 - Jun 26th, 2008, 1:48pm  
Unfortunately I think the vertex buffer stuff is really meant to be read-only, and any movement has to be done via VertexShaders I believe. I've never tried though.
Back to top
 
 
gazy
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #7 - Jul 22nd, 2008, 3:46am  
can you explain in words what makes it so fast with so many points? Smiley
Back to top
 
Custom visuals creation: http://www.lapseadazical.com/
WWW  
JohnG
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #8 - Jul 22nd, 2008, 12:51pm  
It's fast because it puts all the data into a buffer, and then sends it to your video card. Then each frame all the program has to do is say "draw that thing I sent you again" without having to specify all the points over and over, or transfer the data to the video card each frame.
Back to top
 
 
jeffg
Re: Simple Galaxy
Reply #9 - Mar 26th, 2009, 2:39pm  
That is just pure awesomeness!  Great work and thanks for posting the VBO code.
Back to top
 
WWW  
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›