Vector Display GPU Project

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

thehermit — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 06:57:45 GMT

OMG!!! Ended up here after watching your Music Player w/controls video on YT. Can't believe what I've just seen.

In 1978, I was doing Laserium shows in London, until I went freelance. Throughout the 1980's, I was developing laser projection systems for exhibitions and touring w/bands. My forte was developing the projection systems and shows, while my partner(s) did the analog, 6502, or 8088 electronics for the control desk.

Initially, we used crude analog quadrature oscillators w/preamp mixers. Then, we wire wrapped 8 bit digital boards, etc. before progressing on to acid etched PCBs. Back then, I was dreaming of animating line graphics via interpolation between sequences, just as you have demonstrated.

Now, I'm retired and becoming a maker, seriously considering building a vector system with some Teensy MCU quad oscillators, inexpensive RGB diode lasers, and an x/y scanning head. With today's prices and technology, a full color, single head laser projector could be built for <$1000 instead of ~$25,000 back in the day.

Sure wish I had your vector program when I auditioned for Floyd's Division Bell tour back in 1987. Oh well...

Congratulations on your awesome work. I'll be back.

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

shabaz — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 15:21:51 GMT

Really stunning work.

The Lorenz patterns I've always thought are the stuff of nightmares : ) they look like crazy eyes : )

For the 'Bonus Track' section, just curious, what was the workflow? (i.e. what did you use to extract frames from the video, was it coded in (say) Python or C++? what libraries were useful for that?, and which API did you find most convenient for working with OpenCV?). I'm curious because I've only used the C++ API for OpenCV and was wondering what others would use and the reasons (e.g. more productivity).

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

jc2048 — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:03:14 GMT

Nice update (sections 4.2 and 4.3). I particularly like the 3D view - much easier to understand the overall shape than with the three orthogonal 2D views. How much of the resources of the Spartan 7 part are you using?

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

DAB — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 18:55:40 GMT

Your project brings back many memoires.

I first encountered vector displays back in the mid 1970's.

We had a lot of fun learning how to control them to put up clear displays.

In many ways they were simpler than raster graphics, but they were so much more expensive that in the end, despite clearer output, they were overtaken.

I look forward to seeing your project unfold.

DAB

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

jc2048 — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:33:03 GMT

"...but after multiplying you must divide by 2 to the power the number of fractional bits..."

But be careful with any resulting sign bit.

I'm not familiar with Q format, probably because I'm essentially self-taught on using FPGAs. I just do little drawings like this

[View:/resized-image/__size/600x200/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-335f8398-1591-404d-b6c4-61b5fc7c176b/contentimage_5F00_205256.jpg:600:200]

This is a 36-bit number with a sign bit and 6 bits ahead of the binary point for something I'm playing with at the moment (more sine generation). The bit numbers above are there to make it easy to see how to manipulate the different parts of the number.

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

dubbie — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:24:51 GMT

I have always found vector displays interesting, possibly because I started my career when cathode ray tubes were still the main display technology and I made a TV into a computer monitor. This used raster methods but I also looked at vectors as well, as oscilloscopes were starting to be used to display text at that time. A friend also had a very early arcade game machine that used vector graphics, Asteroids I think it was called - a game specifically for vector displays, when it first came out.

I tried to make a laser scanner using ordinary sound speakers to move the mirrors, but without much success.

And I can remember when you added the 8087 FPU to your 8088 based PC to make mathematics much faster. I was fascinated by the ability of the PC to use a software implementation for floating point if the 8087 was absent, but automatically (at least I think it was automatic) changed to using the hardware 8087 if it was present. As far as I was concerned, the IBM-PC was a triumph of open source hardware (and software) design.

Dubbie

RE: Vector Display GPU Project

luigimorelli — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 08:32:27 GMT

Please keep us informed about your project! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-335f8398-1591-404d-b6c4-61b5fc7c176b/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]