blackhole.plav.in
Learning and science
black hole visualization
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
17 positive, 25 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 20 critical, out of 63 comments about the project. Thread score +0.13.
Execution: 4 for, 5 againstIdea: 6 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 6 againstDocs: 0 for, 2 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Cool use of WebXR
From 1 comment
Very cool use of WebXR!
utopiah on HN
Objections
Colormap and disk color are arbitrary, so not physically accurate.
From 1 comment
If anyone's interested in the accuracy, this is very 'visualisation grade' software. Its a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people present these sims as being very physically…
20k on HN
Simplified radiative transfer and Doppler formula are inaccurate.
From 1 comment
If anyone's interested in the accuracy, this is very 'visualisation grade' software. Its a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people present these sims as being very physically…
20k on HN
Non-rotating black hole by default.
From 1 comment
If anyone's interested in the accuracy, this is very 'visualisation grade' software. Its a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people present these sims as being very physically…
20k on HN
Requests
Support rotating (Kerr) black holes by default.
From 2 comments
“Physically accurate” indeed raises the bar significantly. You’ve already done great work here. That said, the feedback seems to come from someone who spent considerable time…
EugeneOZ on HNSure, most of the raised questions are reasonable potential feature additions to be made – things like rotating black holes, or linear brightness-to-screen-pixel mapping. They…
aplavin on HN
Linear brightness-to-pixel mapping mode.
From 2 comments
Yeah the doppler in this picture is all wrong unfortunately, the underlying equation used isn't right here (they mixed up spectral radiance and radiant flux). The rendering is…
20k on HN> What exactly is physically accurate here though? I'll assume this is a good faith question, hope it was intended like one. I view strong light bending as the key distinguishing…
aplavin on HN
Questions
How the black hole would look in a room and its mass estimate.
From 1 comment
> I do wonder if you do like, size estimates of a black hole in my room. Suppose I have a black hole in my room, I'd be curious to know what the mass of that is, like a fun fact,…
aplavin on HN
Why camera mode and AR cannot be combined.
From 1 comment
Yes, as said in the text, unfortunately this is a limitation of browser APIs. You either get AR and no access to the camera feed (this is the AR mode here, black hole floating in…
aplavin on HN
Alternatives named
Luminet's 1979 black hole simulation
From 1 comment
The technology has come a long way indeed! The first simulations of how a black hole would look like are from 1979, by Jean-Pierre Luminet – take some time to find and look at…
aplavin on HN
Interstellar visualization
From 1 comment
If anyone's interested in the accuracy, this is very 'visualisation grade' software. Its a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people present these sims as being very physically…
20k on HN
Dominic Chang's black hole camera filter
From 1 comment
Yes, linked in the readme! They simulate light bending, but ignore time delay effects. I think the earliest of these black-hole-camera renderings is…
aplavin on HN