
Binvis.io – Visual Analysis of Binary Files - nikolay
http://binvis.io/
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david-given
This is using a Hilbert curves to transform a single dimension into a two-
dimensional space, isn't it?

(As demonstrated by: [https://xkcd.com/195/](https://xkcd.com/195/))

Hilbert curves preserve locality --- points that are close to each other on
the curve are close to each other on the map. The human brain has lots of
hardware acceleration for dealing with space and geography, so this is a
really good way of visualising single-dimensional quantities in an intuitive
way. I've always thought there were really cool things you could do with this
technique.

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moyix
On the downside, if you want more information than "these two things are
spatially close to one another", the Hilbert curve makes it difficult. Unless
you have a map of the curve in your head, could you tell where in the file
something in (say) the upper-right quadrant is?

If folks are interested in Hilbert curve visualizations applied to live
memory, this is something I implemented in PANDA a couple years ago and demoed
at RECON:

[https://youtu.be/YGVnpWXtlF4?t=2919](https://youtu.be/YGVnpWXtlF4?t=2919)

My conclusion was that I had no idea how I'd actually use such a thing, but it
sure is pretty to watch values in memory changing on the Hilbert curve!

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xuhu
Wonder how they figure out the alignment size.

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vanderZwan
Reminds me of my favourite piece of vaporware: cantor.dust

[https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/](https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8--
cXwuuFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8--cXwuuFQ)

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codingdave
You may want to use capitalization to make it clear if you intend it to read
BinVis, or bInvis. At first glance, I wasn't sure why you would use "Invis" to
label a visualization tool.

~~~
nikolay
I edited it to the original 'binvis.io' as intended by the author, but some
moderator changed it back.

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j_s
Couldn't find the reference but I have a fuzzy recollection of a discussion
explaining that the first letter is always capitalized.

~~~
nikolay
Yes, but they capitalize only on submission - when you edit, you can override
it.

