Hey everyone,

I've joined the MilkyWay@Home project for the semester and have heard some rumblings of people wanting some sort of visualization, or screen saver, dare I say :-). We've come up with a few ideas and would like input on which sounds the most appealing to you.

The ideas are ordered from showing the most scientific data to the least. In other words, Idea 1 will give a very clear visualization of what the work units are doing, whereas Idea 3 is more eye candy with fewer details on the science. I want to know which end of the nitty-gritty/eye candy spectrum you prefer.

Idea 1: A zoomed in view of a wedge, displaying the streams being computed for the wedge with indications of progress so far, color-coding to indicate what stars are in what stream, etc. A very good view of what really is being computed, but not much of an overall picture.

Idea 2: An alternating view of the galaxy that starts zoomed out (showing the current best model of the galaxy), followed by a zoom or similar transfer to showing the currently computing wedge. These views would alternate at some specified time interval.

Idea 3: A constant zoomed out view of the galaxy with maybe some small pictures on the sides showing a currently computing wedge and some sort of progress indicator for current work units.

Obviously it would be ideal to incorporate aspects of all different views, but given time constraints, I'd like to focus my efforts on the most popular idea. I encourage you to throw out your own modifications on the ideas and we'll hash through this.

Let 'em rip
-Eric

For most of us, a screensaver would not work as we are already using the GPU to do the actual crunching.

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Welcome to the project, Eric!

True, any graphical thing (eye candy or not) would have to be made mainly at the expense of the GPU; but as Nvidia and folding@home are concerned, they have an optimized client that shows the work being done in a very FAST way; again, at the expense of the actual processing of the data, but sure is eye candy.

Maybe we could forget the screen saver (the one boinc tries to run when you install it) thingy and go for some visualizer that you can opt to watch or not just to see what are all those mega credits doing. I'd go for idea n.º 2 IF none of the images is like those on the main page of the project; they're colourful, but don´t create a very clear picture "galaxylly" speaking.

Hi Eric I think #2 would be a good start, maybe with our solar systems location added. But as previously noted a lot of us use our GPU's for crunching.
;-p

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I think option 2 is probably the best way forward.

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Don't drink water, that's the stuff that rusts pipes

i like all idea's Eric. but idea 2 and 3 i would love to see happen. but as said above we use gpu so u will have to balance it out to work

Yeah, the whole GPU thing is certainly a consideration. The visualization would be opt-out so that power users could choose to use the full power of their GPUs for computation.

sounds great. how fast till testing

I prefer Idea 1.
[However I am not a normal man, I am a programmer, interested in natural sciences ... and not too young. :-) ]

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Have at last a graphic showing what the project is doing is a great thing.
And Idea 2 is the best. It have a bit for every one.

The user selectable opt-out is a sensible thing.
But still exist people that think that graphic cards are mainly for graphics, and only they spear time should be for number crunching.

A fast screen saver is not needed. In my opinion the Boinc default saver is good enough for that.

And please, show us your beta developments !


Anyway, Welcome to the project.

I love the idea. I think there are a lot of people like me who, not to be rude or anything, don't really care all that much about being as much help as possible. I, and I think there's a big BOINC crowd that would agree with me, just want to feel that i'm contributing something to science and if I could see the fruits of my labor (harhar) then it would make me more inclined to this project. That said, I only care about the eye candy 3 3 3 go for it!

btw I agree with the others, a separate screen saver would probably be the best solution.

Hello ...

Idea 2

Greetings

Balmer

My choice is idea 2. I imagine a kind of Star Trek command screens where continuous data streams appear.

Idea 2 as a big Picture and Idea 1 as a small picture :D

Idea 2..... I dont have any GPU's.....too much money to buy.

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Hey, I'm trying to do work here !

My choice is idea 2. I imagine a kind of Star Trek command screens where continuous data streams appear.

Oooh, you mean the LCARS interface look?
http://www.lcarscom.net/

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My choice is idea 2. I imagine a kind of Star Trek command screens where continuous data streams appear.

Oooh, you mean the LCARS interface look?
http://www.lcarscom.net/

Only with appropriate sound effects!!

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Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the unexpected the expected?
If it makes sense, DON'T do it.

My choice is idea 2. I imagine a kind of Star Trek command screens where continuous data streams appear.

Oooh, you mean the LCARS interface look?
http://www.lcarscom.net/

Only with appropriate sound effects!!

Haha, yeah, this is what we're looking for...sound effects might be a little far fetched, but visual ideas you guys want. This is really half about science and half about making things look interesting, and now's the time to throw around your eye candy ideas.

And please, show us your beta developments !

We'll keep you updated.

I go for a version of two as well.

I like this screen with the numbers on the right.
http://lcarscom.net/gallery.htm

Pure eye candy, BUT they make it LOOK like the computer is doing a hell of an amount of work. Make sure to allow for multiple GPU's / CPU's or you will give the game away! Perhaps, a translucent colour for slices of the Galexy that have been work on, with red for the units currently being crunched on a project wide basis. Plus the eye candy above.

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I like Idea #2.