Visualization Catlog FAQ
This addresses most of the questions and issues that arise with these visualizations. If your question or concern is not addresses here, please feel free to contact us.
The License
The Apache License has an associated FAQ, with some of the most important points in the What does it all MEAN? section. Including- It allows you to:
- freely download and use this software, in whole or in part, for personal, company internal, or commercial purposes;
- use this software in packages or distributions that you create.
- It does not allow you to:
- redistribute any piece of the software software without proper attribution;
- It requires you to:
- include a copy of the license in any redistribution you may make that includes the software;
- It does not require you to:
- include the source of the software itself, or of any modifications you may have made to it, in any redistribution you may assemble that includes it;
- submit changes that you make to the software back to Vizit Solutions, though it is encouraged.
Downloads
The entire catalog is available through GitHub. Additionally, the toolkit used to build the catalog, and its documentation, is also on GitHub.
Customizations
The efield toolkit used to create the visualizations in the catalog is itself a well documented open source project and can be easily used to generate additional visualizations. The toolkit can itself be extended to model additional charge configurations or Gaussian surfaces.
Additional, potentially complex, visualizations can be commissioned across a broad range of topics. These need not be open source projects, though it will be financially advantageous to commission an open source project or extension to an existing project. They need not even be limited to web based projects. This same OpenGL based methodology is applicable to Android and iOS.
Scaling and Resizing
By default the visualization is displayed in a 200px x 200px canvas. A different size is specified by adding a canvas height and canvas width to the URL. The standard sized entry
<figure class="product">
<iframe width="210" height="210"
allowTransparency="true"
src="http://vizit.github.io/catalog/positivelyChargedPlaneWithPositiveCharge/index.html">
</iframe>
<figcaption>The electric field from the positively charged plane
diverges from the positive charge.</figcaption>
</figure>
is easily resized. Further because each visualization is generated dynamically, there are no side effects such as pixelization or distortion from the resizing. This magnification is useful for in class demonstrations or for those who find a larger image easier to view.
<figure class="product">
<iframe width="410" height="410"
allowTransparency="true"
src="http://vizit.github.io/catalog/positivelyChargedPlaneWithPositiveCharge/index.html?canvasHeight=400&canvasWidth=400">
</iframe>
<figcaption>The electric field from the positively charged plane
diverges from the positive charge.</figcaption>
</figure>
Known Issues
The site adheres quite closely to the HTML5, ECMAScript (aka JavaScript™), and WebGL standards. However, despite our best efforts not all examples render as expected on all browsers. For example
The catalog entries do not fully render.
There is a known issue with Chrome on some mobile graphics cards where the last elements drawn with WebGL included in an iframe are lost. Work around this by including the JavaScript that generates the visualization directly in your content. The use of iframes in the catalog is for convenience only.
The embedded iframe loads slowly.
Superior performance can be achieved by including the JavaScript that generates the visualization directly in your content. The use of iframes in the catalog is for convenience only.
On Firefox mobile only two visualizations render on a page
Firefox mobile has placed an arbitrary limit of two WebGL contexts that can be active on a page. The pages render as expected with either a desktop version of Firefox or any version of Chrome. We are considering rewriting the documentation to limit the number of WebGL examples on any one page.