Comments on: A Conch Shell Clock http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/ Hacker, Engineer, Dancer, Gentleman Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:00:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Mike Purvis http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/comment-page-1/#comment-12433 Mike Purvis Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:40:00 +0000 http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/#comment-12433 <p>Yeah, I liked it, too. That was part of this <a href="http://sandbox.mikepurvis.com/js/clock/slender.php" rel="nofollow">earlier concept</a>, showing hours, minutes and seconds. Unfortunately that takes on the order of milliseconds to render on my MacBook, so it's utterly unsuited to real-time presentation—at least within the Canvas medium.</p> <p>Further experiments have suggested that it's as much the JavaScript functions that are a bottleneck as it is the Canvas drawing, though. I'm thinking I could realise some pretty significant performance benefits by aggressively caching the positions of those threads which only need to move on intervals. Even if Canvas requires a complete frame to be drawn every time, just having to calculate the second-hand positions may be a help... and within those, it should be possible to pre-calculate a set of a few hundred positions and snap each to one of them.</p> <p>Or, of course, just switch to language and drawing tool that's meant for this kind of thing. :)</p> Yeah, I liked it, too. That was part of this earlier concept, showing hours, minutes and seconds. Unfortunately that takes on the order of milliseconds to render on my MacBook, so it’s utterly unsuited to real-time presentation—at least within the Canvas medium.

Further experiments have suggested that it’s as much the JavaScript functions that are a bottleneck as it is the Canvas drawing, though. I’m thinking I could realise some pretty significant performance benefits by aggressively caching the positions of those threads which only need to move on intervals. Even if Canvas requires a complete frame to be drawn every time, just having to calculate the second-hand positions may be a help… and within those, it should be possible to pre-calculate a set of a few hundred positions and snap each to one of them.

Or, of course, just switch to language and drawing tool that’s meant for this kind of thing. :)

]]> By: Louis Thomas http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/comment-page-1/#comment-12430 Louis Thomas Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:13:23 +0000 http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/#comment-12430 <p>That's neat twist on the logarithmic clock idea. I really like the picture in your blog entry - it's more "artistic" than the final conch. :)</p> That’s neat twist on the logarithmic clock idea. I really like the picture in your blog entry – it’s more “artistic” than the final conch. :)

]]> By: Samuel Cheng http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/comment-page-1/#comment-12371 Samuel Cheng Sun, 10 Jun 2007 13:31:08 +0000 http://uwmike.com/articles/2007/06/10/conch-shell-clock/#comment-12371 <p>Sweet looking clock.....too bad i have to study or I will keep on staring at it. Good luck on your exams. :)</p> Sweet looking clock…..too bad i have to study or I will keep on staring at it.
Good luck on your exams. :)

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