Year: 2011

Interactive Raytracer: Reboot?

December 14, 2011 Matt No Comments C++, Interactive RayTracer

During SuperComputing 2011, I stumbled across a paper on parallel random number generation. And it brought back some memories of a blog post I wanted to do here on oversampling in my Interactive Raytracer.

Random numbers are important in a raytracer because one needs oversampling to have anti-aliasing, and to have a more realistic rendering, we need to add some jitter inside the oversampling. I won’t talk about this here, it is not my point (yet). So I’ve decided to resurrect IRT from the dead, at least long enough to test parallel random number generators. It is now on Github, and I’ve also changed the matrix library to Eigen. Some optimizations later, it is slightly faster than before, although it is still very far from Bikker’s work.

The Python wrappers are still working BTW.

Let’s hope I find some time to finish this before getting back at VSTs 🙂

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Book review: Version Control by Example

October 25, 2011 Matt 4 Comments Book review, Tools

A colleague of mine give me this book, as I use “third generation” VCSs. I decided to check on the author approach on Version Control and his opinion on the matter. The book explores the different approaches of the latest VCS tools, with their advantages and drawbacks. Also, it delves into some algorithmic designs of Distributed VCSs. I’ve already discussed some of these tools, but the book is not a flame war against one DVCS, but more an explanation of all of them.

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Announcement: QtSimpleEQ 1.0 (QtVST)

October 19, 2011 Matt 4 Comments C++, Music, Digital filters

I’m pleased to announce the 1.0 version of QtSimpleEQ, a plugin with one low-pass, two peak and one high pass second-order filters. Nothing fancy in the algorithms, it’s mainly another show case for Qt VST plugins.

The code is available under the GPL2 on github and on Sourceforge.

The plugin can be download on the Sourceforge project page.

The plugin was tested with Tracktion 3 (Windows XP).

Snapshot:

QtSimpleEQ UI

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QtMosaic 0.1: easy photomosaics

October 11, 2011 Matt No Comments C++

Just for fun, I’m pleased to announce a working version of QtMosaic.
It allows to create a mosaics database and then generate a photomosaic from this database.

For instance, here is an original image:

Original photo

The used database is freely available on the Internet, and the photomosaic is generated with 18×24 thumbnails:
Rendered photomosaic

The code is available on GitHub, as usual, and it has been tested on Windows and Linux.

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QtVST, Qt and QtSimpleEQ

October 4, 2011 Matt No Comments C++, Music, Digital filters

Today, I wanted to announce my new plugin, a 4-bands EQ, but when I started a test with pyVST, I encountered strange things:

  • The first is my fault, as the code of the EQ disappeared from my Git repository, so I have to code it again. Mainly it is just plugin the correct actions between the filters and the GUI.
  • The second is an error at the end of the test. I’ve updated my Qt version from 4.7.1 to 4.7.4, and since this update (or perhaps since I updated to Python 2.7 for pyVST), I found that even a recompiled QtSimpleOverdrive has the same behavior. It did not when I released it. It seems that Qt is complaining about events that are bounced between different threads, but the actual error message is more cryptic, and impossible to debug the application at this point.

I hope to fix these mistakes this month, I really hope I can get QtVST to work again.

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Book review: C++ Concurrency in Action: Practical Multithreading

June 28, 2011 Matt No Comments Book review, C++, Distributed Computing

In the new C++ standard, multithread finally appears, with the old standard supported with TR2. This new addition has numerous implications on how programs are coded, and there are of course almost no book on this matter. This one is an exception.

Note: this review is not based on the final version that is now available (June the 28th), but on the MEAP one. There may be some differences between the final draft and the one I based my review on, although I don’t expect many, and certainly not any huge change.

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Book review: Introduction to High Performance Computing for Scientists and Engineers

May 31, 2011 Matt No Comments Tools, High Performance Computing, C++, Distributed Computing, Book review

We know now that we won’t have the same serial computing increase we had in the last decades. We have to cope with optimizing serial codes, and programming parallel and concurrent ones, and this means that all coders have to cope with this paradigm shift. If computer scientists are aware of the tools to use, it is not the same for the “average” scientist or engineer. And this is the purpose of this book: educate the average coder.

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