Welcome to Fractal Forums

Hi!
Since some people asked for it, here is an early version of my Mandelbox exploration software "Mandelflyer". You can download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ma61ja6zl428ick

There is a small readme file you really SHOULD read before using the program. The program is not particularly suitable for videos, but you can make some simple screenshots, or just fly around - it's designed for exploration first and foremost.

I am not sure whether I will add much more functionality to the program in the future, but, of course, any feedback is welcome, just post it here :)

Thanks for the link, I will definitely give it a try.

Thank you!

I look forward to trying this when I finish work.

When I launch CIT2.exe, I've got an error that pops up: Internal error, possibly due to an invalid parser command. Please save all work, correct the problem if possible, and restart the program. Error codes: Au=0; UM=0; Sh=0; Gr=0; Tra=0; Tex=0

I tried to reinstall DirectX just in case, but still got the error. I'm running Vista. Do you know how I could fix it?

Thanks!

Runs just fine on a nVidia GTX 460, Windows XP Professional 64bit.
EDIT: getting 20-40 FPS in 1920x1200 resolution.

It doesn't open on Windows 7 64, even after doing compatibility mode.  :'( ;D

To those running Vista and Windows 7. May I recommend a recent DirectX 9 redistributable package, e.g. June 2010 found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=3b170b25-abab-4bc3-ae91-50ceb6d8fa8d&displaylang=en

Also it is never a bad idea to use the latest GPU driver from the manufacturer's web site (AMD/nVidia/Intel).

Christian

after opening the preset, i just got a single colored plane, i can move, but that makes the plane just flicker... :(

DirectX and ATI Radeon HD 4650 for 64bit drivers updated, and still the same error message :(

It works on my old XP laptop, but so slowly that it's not usable.

Anyway, thanks for making me update these, because the other realtime program "boxplorer" now works :D

 ;D I'm afraid that Mandelflyer just gives blank screens. I have Windows 7 64 bit, have installed the DirectX_Jun2010 release and rebooted my machine. My GPU is an Nvidia GeForce 9800GT. It would be nice if help could be provided, so than I can fly through the Mandelbox in real time. Thank you.

Ouch, didn't expect that many problems :o

Sorry for that... anyway, on my Windows XP 32bit Notebook with Geforce 8600M the program runs just fine. On my Radeon 4850 Windows 7 64bit it used to run as well, but I just discovered it doesn't and just creates a black screen... but I was able to fix that. Create a file named "shaderinclude.txt" in the program folder and include these lines:

float arw_,arh_,arw1_,arh1_;
float w_,h_,w1_,h1_,wh_,t_,dt_,beat_;
float4x4 mat_;

Alternatively, just copy the attachment file to the program folder, it contains these lines. This should fix the "program works but no visual output" problems.
Some background: These are some additional internal shader variables which I thought wouldn't be required here, but apparently they are... why it creates problems only on some PCs will probably remain a mystery.

@bib
This fix probably won't resolve your problem but you can try anyway... the fact that the error message contains only zeros means that the program crashes somewhere where I didn't expect something to go wrong, so there really isn't much I can do... but as for improving the performance, you can try increasing the "xsp2" and "ysp2" values for downsampling during movements as explained in the readme. Default is 2x2, but I am using 3x4 on my notebook which still looks ok. Depending on how fast your notebook is, you can also try 3x4, or 5x5 or whatever works best for you.

Oh and out of curiosity: Can those of you where the program works tell me your fullscreen frame rate at the initial view and at what resolution?

Thanks for the fix, working beautifully now.
Very impressed ;)

It seems that I can't unarchive it without damaging it. I can't afford to buy one. Do you have a .zip archive?   

Nice & speedy! ATI 5850, at 2560x1600 getting 44.5fps on the default view  ;D

Having a bit of a hard time getting scale -1.77 so show nicely, but the shape seems right. Lots of shimmering, and near plane clipping. The coloring is also not happy on that one.

Trying to figure out why your shader is so much faster than boxplorer's. Looks very similar in the inner loop.  :hmh:

EDIT: in the shader, changing to "l=boxiter();" rather than the current fudging, makes for a much more stable render of the surfaces in at least a -1.77 box. What's the thought behind the fixing up you have there now?
Btw, this live shader editing and seeing what you get is most excellent!

EDIT2: find attached Clt2 for a -1.77 box. Added a .8 fudge to avoid over-estimating. Renders look pretty stable & nice.

You really should read the readme file!  ;D
These additional speed factors you removed control the rate of the raytracing, and can be manipulated easily with the keyboard (J and K in this case). The default values are more or less optimal for the scale=2 Mandelbox, but for your case, you need to reduce it from the default value of 2 to e.g. 1.3. Removing the entire term is equivalent to setting it to 1, which works well in your case, but is inefficient in other cases, and can also cause wall misses in yet different cases.
As for the performance, don't forget that the program is using subsampling! Without it, you would have only 11.125 FPS (or maybe 12 or so since the subsampling itself costs some performance as well).

As for 7zip (currently the best file compression in existence) you can get it here:
http://www.7-zip.org/

Anyway, great to hear that the program seems to be mostly working now.

will try it tonight ;)

Nah, reading documentation gets in the way of my attention deficit disorder  :tongue1:

Yeah, figured out how the subsampling comes to play. All adds up now. Very nice.

Superb! :thumbsup1:
Do you plan to publish some documentation about the scripting language of your app? :happy:

Has anything new and/or exciting happened with Mandelflyer in the mean time? This thread has become rather quiet, unfortunately.

This made it work right away on Vista x64!

I can run this at over 60 fps on loading the default, Any chance of having 3D Monitor support? That would be awesome.

wow this is literally the coolest thing ever

thank you so much


Is there any way I / you can increase the maximum zoom distance / draw distance I think my computer can handle more

wow! wotk fine! nice!!

is possible have this software? Download link's expired...thanks...

thanks for bringing this thread up, I hadn't heard of this real-time explorer.
a little googling brought me to this link:
http://boxplorer.sourceforge.net/
it seems like this is the same programmer and a newer version of the same thing. works not bad here..

thanks! :)