XRT 2.0.0 released !

Posted: 30 Dec 2012 17:14

 Strange attraction

Two years and a half after the 1.0 release, 2.0 is finally out. Although I have not implemented each and every feature detailed in the 2.0 roadmap, the 2.0 milestone is 95% complete. This project is above all a learning experience for me and, during these 30 months (almost an era in the world of computer graphics), I have learned that some of XRT original design ideas are now obsolete and must be reviewed. Because I feel more efficient to implement the missing 5% on a stronger code base, it is high time to move to greener pastures. I'll detail the 3.0 roadmap in a future post.

In the mean time, 2.0 is here for you in the Downloads section. Apart from a few bugs fixes detailed in the ChangeLog, this release has the same feature set than version 1.5.

# Eye-candy

The image of the day is a 2 million particle system generated with a Python RenderMan procedural from a "strange attractor" equation. The particle hues are defined according to the motion speed on the attractor curve (the faster, the warmer). This example (now bundled with XRT examples archive) is derived from work done by a student from Pr Malcolm Kesson at Savannah College of Art and Design.

## Geek section

For the mathematically-inclined and just for the pleasure to write a few LaTeX formulas, the attractor is a Polynomial A whose equation is:

(1)
\begin{align} \dot{x} = p_{0} + y - zy \\ \dot{y} = p_{1} + z - xz \\ \dot{z} = p_{2} + x - yx \end{align}

You will find more attractors at Chaoscope.org

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