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oulipo2 18 hours ago

Isn't that what mathematicians have always done with "level lines"?

semi-extrinsic 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's also what scientists have done to visualize solutions of PDEs since the 1960s. Author should download Paraview and give it a twirl, to get this perspective.

First create a mesh (Sources -> Plane for 2D, or Sources -> Box if you want to do it in 3D). Set reasonably high values for Resolution on this source. Then use a filter to apply your function, either Filters -> Alphabetical -> Calculator for easy stuff, or Filters -> Alphabetical -> Python Calculator if you want complicated stuff. The "coordsX" etc. are your spatial coordinates on the mesh. Pick whatever color map you want (diverging types are good for this), change the limits on coloring, use a log scale, whatever.

If you do this in 3D on a box, you can then use a slice to scrub through the result on an arbitrarily oriented plane. You could visualize translucent isosurfaces of constant "error" and raytrace them. Or you could take the gradient of your "error" and plot as a vector field. With a bit of leg work you can add a fourth coordinate (time) and make animations. And you can combine all of these. Sky is the limit.

calebm 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I did recently learn of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_set concept, and it is a very similar concept.

xico 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Those were popular in the 90s for image processing: e.g. https://shape.polymtl.ca/lombaert/levelset/

andrewflnr 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Dude, it's fine to be learning stuff and even writing about it. But if you're still discovering basic stuff like level sets, then maybe hold off on declaring that you've discovered, after centuries of mathematical development, a completely new form of graphing?

spongebobstoes 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

the author uses hyperbole, yeah. they're an artist, I think it's expected. I don't find anything personally offensive in the exaggerated framing of this art

I think your critique would be more effective if you left out the part where you shame the author's lack of knowledge about level sets

I think it hides your valid (if overstated) criticism of the author's exaggeration behind a non-constructive insult, and your comment would be better without that tone

andrewflnr 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> Dude, it's fine to be learning stuff and even writing about it.

The point about level sets is entirely that the author not only does not have the background to make claims about novelty, they have all the clues they need to figure out that they don't have the background.

ducttapecrown 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It reads more like mysticism than a serious claim of novelty, chill out.

andrewflnr 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> a new type of graphing called "fuzzy graphing"

> For all the history of computational mathematical visualization, graphing equations has been done in binary mode

These are very concrete, non-mystical claims. But do you really think "mysticism" is better here?

munificent 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The first app that lets you type in an implicit curve and get a graph of its level set is a very different claim from "For all the history of computational mathematical visualization, graphing equations has been done in binary mode".

The millions of brightly-colored fractal posters adorning walls in the 80s are a very clear counter-example to your claim.

Your app is cool and the visualization is neat. The hyperbolic claims of originality really detract from that.

calebm 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

To be fair, yes, there are some places where non-binary graphing has been done (like error gradient graphs in AI), but as far as I know, this is the first app where you can type in a basic x/y equation and get a non-binary graph.

keyliejener 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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