Monday, February 05, 2007

Current Plan

Quite a lot of progress was made in the weekend. I don't have any screenshots however. Things are really shaping up for a 0.5 beta mid feb (aka ~10 days). Here is a feature milestone outline:

  • Beta 0.5

    • Obstructions

    • non-adaptive time steps

    • Polygon Previews with velocity visualizing

    • Adjustable fluid parameters



  • Beta 0.7

    • Polygon renderings(Could also be used for traingulation of isosurfaces)

    • Adaptive time steps

    • Multitreading fluid solver

    • Limited Moving boundary support

    • Accelerated Isosurface methods and baking



  • Beta 0.9 feature freeze

    • Moving Obstructions

    • Surface tension (for small scale fluids)

    • Scale options

    • Moving fluid source/exit (aka hose end that's moving)

    • Useful presets (like water, honey)

    • Maybe a materials texture for dye and visualization




Going from 0.9 to 1.0 will be just bug fixes. Yea I get bugs in my code sometimes. At this point I'm working on the GUI. Dam I hate GUI's. Last night someone asked why I use the command line for mplayer when watching a DVD, because its easier than trying to find the option you want with clicks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dam I hate GUI's. Last night someone asked why I use the command line for mplayer when watching a DVD, because its easier than trying to find the option you want with clicks..

The truth is that usability depends on the gui and how understandable it is for "non-scientists"
Maybe we users can help a little with that gui after inital release!
There is at least one designer among us...

Harald

bob said...

Case in point the usabilty depends on the user and the GUI. Just look at 3d modlers. Once the problem is complex enough words like intuitive interface are best left for marketing departments. What one person thinks is a good GUI the other thinks is awfull.

The problems start with prgramms like mplayer or 3d modleing where there are 100's of options, settings and parameters. There is no easy what to present that without some abatary design descions.

My idea is to keep the simple bits simple with complcated "advanced" option tabs. I will be open to sugestions, but unless you understand SPH fluid dynamics the advanced options will probably forever stay a mystrey

I wish this web GUI had a spell checker ;)

Anonymous said...

I wish this web GUI had a spell checker...

Me too!

I guess your decision to devide into a standard and an advanced gui
is a wise one. It´s just that I saw enough guis to decide for myself at least - which I like and to which I´ll never make my way trough. AoI itself is so lovely because of "using as much gui as needed".

Harald

bob said...

I do not understand "using as much gui as needed"?

Anonymous said...

Hi Bob,

I mean the gui is not cluttered like 3DMax and others - its relative `clean`.

Harald