Info
Some information and tips about using program, installation, performances and required hardware
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glChAoS.P / glChAoSP: Opengl Chaotic Attractors of Slight (dot) Particles A real time 3D strange attractor scout.
Yes, another attractor visualizer, but glChAoS.P allows you to explore interactively any attractor type, modifyng linearly the values and displaying the changes obtained, immediately, in 3D and in realtime.
With several options:
- 100 Million of particles in minus of 1.6 GByte of VRAM (Slight (dot) Particles)
- PointSprite and Billboard particles types
- 3D blended/solid/lighted particles
- Single dot or DualPass rendering (surface reconstruction from zBuffer)
- Shadows and AmbientOcclusion
- Light models: Phong / Blinn-Phong / GGX
- Distance attenuation on Size an Alpha channel
- Full customizable colors, with several color palettes
- Customizable glow effects: Gaussian Blur / bilateral deNoise with threshold / Gaussian + deNoise
- Customizable FXAA filter
- Motion blur
- Post processing image correction:
- gamma - exposure - brightness - contrast - toneMapping
... and more
For more usage info: glChAoS.P info
Theoretically all graphics card that supports OpenGL 4.0 supports also OpenGL 4.5, depends only from drivers (and O.S.)
About the GPUs that support the OpenGL 4.5 (with appropriate drivers and OS permitting):
- NVidia starting from GT/GTX 4xx series
- AMD starting from HD 5xxx series
- Intel starting from Ivy Bridge/Bay Trail CPUs (with HD 4000/2500 graphics)
- GPU starting from AMD HD 7970 / NVidia GTX 670 or with better performance
- CPU with 2 or more cores
Glow effects, mostly with sigma > 5, requires expensive calculations in tems of performance
If you have solw performance try, in this order:
- Prefer Pointsprite on AMD and Intel GPU (sensible difference of performance)
- Disable GlowEffects and/or FXAA
- Decrease number of particles buffer < 3000
- Decrease point size (if you can)
- try squared 1024x1024 window size (from Settings panel)
Microsoft Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X
Tested Operating System Versions:
- Microsoft Windows 7/8.x/10
- Linux distributions: Ubuntu 16.04/18.04, Fedora 27/28
- Mac OS X 10.14 (Mojave)
No installation program is provided: just clone it form github or download the archive and decompress it in a folder whatever: only the internal directories structure must be preserved.
For Windows and Linux glChAoSP uses OpenGL 4.5 with AZDO (Approaching Zero Driver Overhead) and a separate thread (multithread) emitter/generator of particles with memory mapped directly on GPU vRAM.
On Mac OS X, for a limitation of the OS (from Mojave Apple have deprecated OpenGL) there is a downgraded version that use OpenGL 4.1 (higher possible) with a separate thread emitter/generator that use the conventional CPU memory.
Are provided executable for the followings OS:
Windows
glChAoSP.exe and glChAoSP32.exe: native executable (64 and 32 bit) are provided for OpenGL >= 4.5: Preferably use the 64-bit version. (you can recompile it, with appropriate define, to obtain an OpenGL 4.1 compliant)
glChAoSP_viewports.exe: beta version of multiple viewports is also provided (floating GUI windows that can go out outside of main Viewport/Window): (only 64 bits). This is a great version, solid beta and full functional, but based on a under development version of ImGui library.
Tested on Windows 7, 8 and 10
Linux
glChAoSP_Linux: native executable (64 bit) is provided for OpenGL >= 4.5, (you can recompile it, with appropriate define, to obtain an OpenGL 4.1 compliant)
After clone, copy or decompression, take care that executable bit of the file glChAoSP_Linux is active (chmod +x).
Take care to have installed OpenGL library, whereas libX11 libXext should already be installed.
It was tested on Fedora 27/28 and Ubuntu 16.04/18.04 LTS, although with subsequent updates and different library versions you may need to rebuild it. Read Build/CMake sections for further information.
- Wine: The Windows executable, 32/64 bit, works fine also in wine 3.xx with no evident loss of performance
Tested on Fedora 27/28 and Ubuntu 16.04/18.04
OS X
glChAoSP_OSX: native executable (64 bit) is provided for OpenGL 4.1
From “Finder” click on applescript: “glChAoSP_OSX app”, or form command line type directly the command: ./glChAoSP_OSX
This was tested on OS X ver 10.14 (Mojave) only, although with subsequent updates and different library versions you may need to rebuild it. Read Build/CMake sections for further information.
Tested on 10.14 Mojave and 10.15 Catalina
More about hardware requirements, use/installation, bugs and bugs fix, FAQ, etc, I remand you to GitHub main page of glChAoS.P
The application settings are saved in the glChAoSP.cfg file, in the same folder where the executable resides. Is text file (with json syntax), you can edit it (with careful) or delete it to return to default settings.
The program, at first use, starts with a viewport of 1024x1024 pixels:
this is thought for slow performances GPUs (more little and squared textures), but the window is resizable, and you can set it to start to the desired resolution in *settings (F8)* window.
Also the font size is thinked for an initial FullHD (1920x1080) display, as well as the widgets dimensions are linked to font size, so if you have a more elevated DPI and want a bigger appearance, changing fonts size you resize also the controls.
In settings fase, the fonts can appear slightly 'blurred', after you have selected a preferred dimension and have saved settings, restart the program for a clear font appearance.
You can also switch in full screen mode (and vice versa) with double-click on background of the main window or with F11 key
The positions and sizes of the inside windows are always auto-saved in the imgui.ini file, , in the same folder where the executable resides: delete it to return to default settings.
The initial parameters of any attractors family are in the folder “startData”.
The folder “ChaoticAttractors” contains several (my) saved data.
Both files type have same format and a symbolic extension “*.sca” (acronym of Strange Chaotic Attractor), but in reality are a text file with json syntax.
The folder “colorMaps” contains default palette file “palette.json”, additional colorMaps files are provided: they can be loaded from “palette window” (open it clicking on graphic color map button).
(look at the section "3rd party tools" for attribution and relative user license)