[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Re: Fast interactive graphics

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg77832] Re: Fast interactive graphics
• From: Helen Read <hpr at together.net>
• Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 06:50:42 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <f4tkii$hp2$1@smc.vnet.net> <f530q8$1ep$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: HPR <read at math.uvm.edu>

Steve Luttrell wrote:
> I had not yet discovered tutorial/AdvancedManipulateFunctionality, and 
> having worked through that tutorial I see now how to use Manipulate much 
> more effectively.
> 
> I have also worked through your [John Fultz's] examples, but I find the interactive 
> graphics performance on my PC is very poor for those examples that you say 
> you can run acceptably fast. I have a 2.1GHz PC with 2.5GB RM, so I assume 
> it is my graphics card that is the limiting factor for me; it is an ATI 
> Radeon 9600 which is fairly low in the graphics card pecking order these 
> days.

I could not observe much difference between John Fultz's various 
examples on my PC; they were all quite slow. On a somewhat related note, 
I find that rotating 3D graphics with the mouse in some situations 
completely freezes up my 5-year-old PC (2.26 GHz, 1 GB RAM). It's quick 
for a Plot3D or ParametricPlot3D of a simple surface, but if I combine 
multiple graphics, the response is incredibly slow to the point of 
freezing up. I ran into this when making up illustrations of 
approximating the volume of a surface of revolution with 8 or so disks / 
washers / cylindrical shells, which I put together with Table and Show. 
The graphic renders pretty quickly (a lot faster than 5.2, on the same 
PC), but it's pretty much impossible to rotate with the mouse. Hopefully 
it will be more responsive in the classrooms where I teach, which have 
newer computers.

-- 
Helen Read
University of Vermont