I normally would never post an announcement for a screensaver to this
list but this time is an exception because this saver has its roots in
SciVis. Fluid uses many of the techniques that we have used over the
past few years for doing visualizations of ocean models for CAVE
environments. We figured that it would be a great sample for people to
see the kinds of things that Macs are capable of doing in the SciVis
arena.
The saver is computing AND visualizing the fluid model in realtime so
right now it is limited by processor speed as it computes the model. We
could actually get much better framerates if we used the technique that
is normally used in ocean visualization: of having a pre-computed model
that is visualized in realtime. But, for a demonstration application it
does its job just fine.
Note that we haven't made any card-specific optimizations to the code
(so that it could run on just about any machine) so we could actually
get more performance out of it that way too. We have put in a single
rendering style that is unique to the Radeon8500 but it isn't a
performance option.
We have a couple of other visualizations that we want to add to the mix
(like LIC) but they are a bit too processor intensive along with the
model computations. Maybe with the fabled PPC970 on the way? :)
Anyway, pardon the interruption but I didn't think it was TOO far off
target. It might be a decent demo to use to show your superiors and
clients that Macs CAN be used to do visualization.
