Well, after asking on Usenet for a matrix library with redeeming features, I've at least got something working; the first eigenmode appears, resplendent and polychrome, rendered at forty frames a second.
It still takes several seconds to compute the shape of the eigenmode, mostly because I'm not using proper sparse-matrix algorithms; but I have a book of those freshly arrived from Amazon, and a couple of the matrix libraries with fewer redeeming features do seem to contain partial implementations.
I think there might be up to two orders of magnitude improvement available in the linear algebra; the display can't be much faster on this laptop, but with a bit of thought about getting triangles to share edges it should be possible to get a ten-fold improvement on the better video card on my desktop at home. Something to do around Christmas ...
It's not obvious how, or indeed if, I should distribute this; at the moment it's a 1.5MB executable that needs DirectX 9, so not even my housemates can run it, does anyone know how to build with the DX9 SDK a program that runs under DX8?
It still takes several seconds to compute the shape of the eigenmode, mostly because I'm not using proper sparse-matrix algorithms; but I have a book of those freshly arrived from Amazon, and a couple of the matrix libraries with fewer redeeming features do seem to contain partial implementations.
I think there might be up to two orders of magnitude improvement available in the linear algebra; the display can't be much faster on this laptop, but with a bit of thought about getting triangles to share edges it should be possible to get a ten-fold improvement on the better video card on my desktop at home. Something to do around Christmas ...
It's not obvious how, or indeed if, I should distribute this; at the moment it's a 1.5MB executable that needs DirectX 9, so not even my housemates can run it, does anyone know how to build with the DX9 SDK a program that runs under DX8?