JeGX's Infamous Lab

Archive for the ‘Utility’ Category

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The new version of GPU Caps Viewer is on its way. Currently I’m playing with a radial blur (HDR demo) grabbed in a NVIDIA demo. It’s quite intensive and I think I’m going to code a new benchmark based on this demo (like the FurMark).

Tested Version: 1.02

GLC_Player is an OBJ {Alias|Wavefront} object viewer. OBJ is the ascii standard file format to describe 3d objects. This format is very simple and do not force to follow a strict file structure. But this liberty has a price: the parsing is, in some case, quite difficult. And I must confess that GLC_Player does the job rather well.

GLC_Player offers a Virtual Trackball camera, which is very handy to handle the object and examine it under all possible angles. GLC_Player is delivered with some samples of OBJ files but for the infamous lab it’s out the question to use GLC_Player loadable certified objects!

So I jumped on that page and I downloaded the Ferrari F40 model. This model is provided in MAX format. This format is conveniant for my tests because I can convert it using MAX OB exporter.

For the test I also used HyperView3D in order to compare the way both tools load OBJ files.

- Ferrari F40 and GLC_Player:

- Ferrari F40 and HyperView3D:

The strange tasks in the hood come from the normals exported by MAX that are not correct at these places. Let’s forget this detail. We can see that GLC_Player has had a little problem to load some textures (the Ferrari logo on the hood) and does not take into account transparent materials (windshield and headlights).

The other thing that can prevent a detailed analyze of the 3d models is the way the meshes are managed. GLC_Player loads the OBJ file into a big and unique mesh even though the model has 36 distinct meshes.

Conclusion: if you need a tool to quickly view OBJ files, GLC_Player is that tool. What’s more GLC_Player is available for Windows and Linux. From now on, it lies in my graphics toolbox next to HyperView3D. But if you need a more accurate analysis of a 3d model in order to exploit it in a real time 3d application (Demoniak3D?) GLC_Player is not adapted yet.

The new version of GPU-Z is out. So let’s do the quick test of GPU temperature:

Well… for GeForce GPUs, it’s not better than version 0.1.6…

On the other hand, for Radeon GPUs, the temperature is right:

If you are a keyboard addict like me, then here is an utility really handy to boost your productivity. KeyBreeze is a floating command line that makes it possible to launch almost everything. Once configured, it’s a precious tool for the geek your are.

Homepage: www.keybreeze.com

Official description leeched from the author’s website:
”Keybreeze is a command-line program launcher for Windows. Launch programs and websites by pressing a hotkey on your keyboard and typing keywords. You can search the internet, shut down your computer, access a dictionary, record macros, and access other shortcuts from your keyboard.”

I use it for several days and I adopted it. You start KeyBreeze by pressing a hotkey. By default it’s the semi-colon [;]. I chose the following hotkey: [Ctrl]+[Backspace] which I find more practical. Being a C/C++ developer, it’s out of the question to press twice the semi-colon to finish an instruction.

Examples of use:

- Search for oZone3D.Net with google: [Ctrl]+[Backspace] + s ozone3d.net + [ENTER]

- Start Windows calculator: [Ctrl]+[Backspace] + cal + [ENTER] = about 2 seconds…
- Open Windows registry editor: [Ctrl]+[Backspace] + reg + [ENTER]

The FAQ presents you a more detailed table with all pre-built keywords.

A must have in your toolbox. All explanations are in Unlocker’s homepage. Simple and effective! These last days, I’ve had regularly a file locked by an unknown processus (ProcessExplorer, now I know it!). Without Unlocker it was difficult to know which is the guilty processus. With Unlocker, you now know which is the locker processus and you can unlock the file.

Dryad is a tree gnenrator. It’s an OpenGL application and is available for Windows and MacOS X. Dryad allows to select a tree from a space called “the space of all trees” (in the right side of the app). The tree is created by interpolation between all trees that lie near the mouse. Pay attention because Dryad is very memory-consuming and 2 Gb of ram is recommended.

Once you have select your tree, a click on the gearing icon displays the tree parameters. You can customize everything: trunk, leaves, branches.

On the following image, I reduced the number of leaves and slightly incurved the upper branches.

My adjustments end up to :

Dryad exports your creation in an OBJ file. The one of the previous image is a huge 62Mb OBJ file, ouch! The OBJ file is properly generated and comes with its materials file. 62Mb is too big, and after a few adjustments, I get a 2Mb OBJ file with approximately 24000 faces. Okay now let’s load it in HyperView3D:

Now the problem now is that Y and Z coordinates are reversed. But HyperView3D has a little function to solve this problem: the swap of Y and Z coordinates. Because we encouter this problem time to time, this little function is useful…

For those who want to play with that OBJ file, you can grab it here: Dryad_Tree.zip.

Conclusion: Dryad is a handy utility for trees generation but requires a powerful computer. The OBJ export makes it possible to exploit the trees in all 3D applications that can load this standard format (like Demoniak3D for instance!).

Daphne est un petit utilitaire de gestion de processus dans la même lignée que ProcessExplorer. Il affiche la liste détaillée de tous les processus avec toutes les infos (pid, path, threads, priority, …). L’option qui me plait dans ce tool est la possibilité de killer un processus de manière barbare, c’est à dire instantanément et non avec un temps d’attente de plusieurs secondes comme avec le task manager de Windows.
Il est aussi possible de lister tous les threads appartenant à un processus et de les terminer individuellement. Très utile pour la mise au point d’applications multithreadées.

Une autre option disponible mais que je n’ai pas testée est de donner à Daphne le privilège “Debug programs”. Cela permettra à Daphne d’afficher encore plus d’informations sur les processus/threads du système. J’ai reproduit ci-dessous le contenu de la page Adding user rights on Windows XP:

In order to see full process list on Windows XP or over, you may
have to add "Debug programs" privilege to your user account.
   1. Run the "Local security setting" administrator by
      typing "secpol.msc" in the Run... option of yout start menu.
   2. Expand the tree by clicking the "Local policies" item.
   3. Select the "User Rights Assignment" item.
   4. Double-click the "Debug programs" option in the right panel.
   5. Click "Add user or group..." button.
   6. Insert the user name and click "Check names" button.
   7. Click the OK button and close all opened windows.
   8. You have to restart your session.

A new version of GPU-Z is out. That’s cool. W1zzard has added a new tab with some info (redundant at least for the two first) : gpu clock speed, temperature and fan speed. But I think there is a problem in the reading of the gpu temperature sensor. Here are the results with my 8800 GTX:

1 – GPU-Z: 52 °C

2 – GPU Caps Viewer: 58 °C

3 – RivaTuner: 58 °C

Ok let’s wait for the next version…

Je viens de trouver un site web qui au premier abord peut paraitre superflu et inutile: superscreenshot.com.
En gros, on tape une url et on obtient le screenshot d’un site web. Ok, alors je fais un petit test avec ozone3d.net. Et là surprise! Il me sort l’image complète de la front page du site:

Il faut le faire car la front page d’ozone3d.net est bien chargée! Du coup je me dis que cet utilitaire online peut rendre quelques services lorsque l’on a besoin de faire une image complète d’une page qui ne tient pas dans la surface d’un écran.