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xstar.1x

NAME

XStar Version 2.2 - X11 animated n-body solver

SYNOPSIS

xstar [-hrRMv] [-b stars] [-g geometry] [-d host:display] [-t timeout] [-D delay] [-B buf_factor] [-c star_color] [-C bg_color] [-a float] [-m [taylor3|rk4|gpemce8|ab7|am7]] [-l float] [-T num_pts]

DESCRIPTION

XStar is an X11 client that ``solves'' the n-body problem, and displays the results on the screen. It starts by putting a bunch of stars on the screen, and then it lets the inter-body gravitational forces move the stars around. The result is a lot of neat wandering paths, as the stars interact and collide. Try using the display mode options (-c, -C, -R, or -M) to make things more colorful.

OPTIONS

XStar has the following options:

-h

Display the usage message and exit.

-b stars

Select the number of stars to initially have in the star system. The default is 15 stars, the minimum is 2 and the maximum is 249.

-r

Use root window.

-g [=][<width>x<height>][{+-}<xoffset>{+-}<yoffset>]

Selects the initial window size and location. If the -r option is also selected, then the offset is used to move the "center of the star system" around. That is, you can use the -g option to move the interesting stuff to a free spot of your screen.

-d host:display

As in -d spacsun:0.0 or -d unix:0.0.

-t timeout

Use XStar as your screen saver with the given no-activity timeout value (in seconds).

-D delay

Periodically wait for 'delay' milliseconds to keep from using 100% of the CPU. The default is 0 ms. This doesn't always work incredibly well to reduce the CPU usage because most Unix schedulers notice that XStar is not using as much CPU as it could and they increases XStar's priority. On the other hand, it does make the display rate vary less as collisions decrease the number of stars.

-c star_color

Select the color of the stars. The default is White. Turns of the implicit -R option.

-C bg_color

Select the color of the background. The default is Black. Turns of the implicit -R option.

-R

Rotate the star colors through the Rainbow. This is the default unless the -c or -C options are used. Very pretty, but uses up 48 color slots. This causes each star track to change colors as time passes, but at any given time, all stars have the same color. Also available with the 'r' runtime command.

-M

Assign multiple star colors. Also uses up 48 color slots. At any given time, each star has a unique color (unless there are too many stars to do this). This makes it much easier to see where a star has been. Also available with the 'm' runtime command.

-a value

Adjusts the accuracy of the position calculations by a factor of ``value''. The larger the value, the more accurately XStar simulates the real world but the slower it runs. The value can be any floating point number greater than zero. The default value is 1.0. Any value greater than zero is valid, with values below 1 decreasing the accuracy and values above one increasing it.

-m taylor3|rk4|gpemce8|ab7|am7

Selects the method to use for updating the star locations and velocities. The default method is ab7.

taylor3

Use a taylor series expansion to get an order 2 method, but then uses previous acceleration values to extend it to a 3rd order method. This method is the fastest method and for accuracies below .8 (-a .8), it is also the most accurate.

rk4

Use the Runge-Kutta method of 4th order. It is over 4 times as slow as taylor3, but it is not 4 times as accurate. It is used internally to initialize the taylor3, am7 and ab7 methods.

gpemce8

Use an 8th order Gragg's polynomial extrapolation method with modifications for conservation of energy to make it a discrete mechanics method. This is by far the most accurate method, and when it's accuracy breaks down, the resulting star system preserves the constants of motion, that is, it conserves the energy of the system, the center of gravity, the linear and angular momentum, etc. It is also by far the slowest method and probably not useful except on a very fast machine or when you are using it as a benchmark to compare other methods.

ab7

Use a 7th order Adam-Bashford method. This is the default and for accuracies in the range of .8 to 4, it is the most efficient method. It is slightly slower than the taylor3 method, especially when there are only a few stars.

am7

Use a 7th order Adam-Moulton predictor-corrector method. It is about twice as expensive as ab7, and not a whole lot more accurate.

-l float

The minimum distance between stars before they collide. The default is one pixel. This value should be increased when decreasing the accuracy. You can also decrease the collision distance to be less than one pixel if you greatly increase the accuracy, but results can be confusing since entire loops could be contained within a single pixel. If this value is set too small for the current accuracy, then the star system will star displaying strange behaviors.

-T num_pts

The number of points to display as star trails. The default is 16384 points, the minimum is 512 and the maximum is 24575. If you use a value less than the minimum, then no points will be remembered. Instead, the star trails will not erase themselves and the screen will be periodically cleared. Using the -T 0 option will greatly reduce the memory requirements of XStar.

-B buf_factor

This changes the amount of buffering to be done with the X server. The default is 1.0, but any number greater than zero can be used to increase or decrease the buffering. If the stars appear to move in a jerky fashion, then you should decrease the buffering to a value between 0 and 1. If there is too much server/network load being generated by XStar, then increase the buffering factor.

-v

Display verbose internal debugging information. Several -v options will make XStar more verbose.

RUN TIME COMMANDS

When XStar is running, it will accept a few commands from the keyboard. They are:

d

Add an immobile collapsar/gravity well.

e

Erase the star trails.

n

Reinitialize the star system with a new set of stars.

+

Add a star to the current star system. All future star systems will also have an additional star.

-

Delete a star from the current star system. XStar will try to delete the "least interesting" star. Often the deleted star will be off the screen. All future star systems will also have one less star.

m

Toggle to ``multiple color mode'', where each star has its own color.

r

Toggle to ``Rainbow mode'', where the stars will change color with time.

p

Pause the updating of the screen. Actually, XStar will continue to update the screen, but there will be a 3 second delay between updates. This is useful if XStar is using up too much CPU and you want to stop it for a short period of time.

Press p again to return to full speed.

q

Quit running XStar.

HELPFUL HINTS

If you find the system running too quickly, you can do any of the following things:

1)

Use the -D option to add a delay between updates. This also keeps XStar from using 100% of the CPU.

2)

Use the -a option to increase the accuracy of the system.

3)

Use the -b option to add additional stars. Doubling the number of stars will make XStar run about 4 times as slow.

4)

If you have increased the accuracy, you can then also slightly decrease the collision distance with the -l option. Don't over do it though, or you will start seeing strange things happen.

5)

Use the -m option to select a more accurate, but less efficient method such as rk4 or gpemce8.

If you find the system running too slowly, you can do any of the following things:

1)

Use the -b option to decrease the number of stars.

2)

Use the -a option to decrease the accuracy of the system. You probably will want to change the collision distance a little bit also by using the -l option.

3)

Use the -m option to select a less accurate, but faster method namely taylor3. If you decrease the accuracy below .8, taylor3 will be more accurate than ab7.

4)

Buy a faster computer, get a better optimizer for your compiler, or implement a faster method of calculating the star locations.

If you find the that XStar is using too much memory, you can do any of the following:

1)

Use the -T 0 option to eliminate the star trails. (Saves about 200k.)

2)

Do not use rainbow mode or multi-color mode. (Saves a little bit)

3)

Recompile XStar to use a smaller value for HASH_TABLE_BITS.

AUTHOR

XStar's author is Wayne Schlitt, wayne@midwestcs.com

All comments, bug reports, bug fixes, enhancements, etc are welcome. Send them to me at wayne@midwestcs.com.

This program started out as a heavily modified version of XGrav, which was written by David Flater (dave@case50.ncsl.nist.gov) and posted to alt.sources on 1/21/95. I liked the program enough that I was really interested in it, but I didn't like it enough to leave it alone. The idea was Dave's, but I think that very little of his code is left. There is probably more code left from XSwarm, which Dave used to implement the X port of his n-body problem solving code. Xswarm's author is Jeff Butterworth (butterwo@cs.unc.edu).

Like XGrav, any claim to this program that I have (which isn't much) is under the GNU General Public License. Have fun with it.

Documentation converted to ``man'' format by Jeff Mogul (mogul@wrl.dec.com), who also added the -m option.