Simple idea — powerful results
ButterflyFX treats geometry as first-class data: shapes, surfaces and contours aren't just visuals — they carry meaning. Instead of copying and storing every value, we use the form and context of shapes to extract meaning on demand. That lets systems stay small, fast, and privacy-friendly.
How it helps
- Less storage, smarter access: Data can live where it already exists — its surface and contours encode context so you only materialize values when asked.
- Geometry-based computing: Compute and queries can be expressed in terms of shapes and lenses; shapes do the work and give semantic meaning to every point.
- Context lenses: A context lens interprets a shape in a particular way — so the same geometry can yield different, meaningful data depending on the view.
- Secure, passive presence: The universal hard drive concept lets remote systems expose data like a library card — it doesn’t copy or upload anything until explicitly requested.
- Extensible ecosystem: The Butterfly core, Butterfly server, and the Universal Connector built on SRLs form a foundation for plugins and apps. See The Conduit for an example app using the connector.
Components
- Core — lightweight runtime and primitives for geometry-aware operations.
- Butterfly Server — coordinates connectors and provides secure endpoints for shapes and views.
- Universal Connector & SRLs — a universal protocol for linking arbitrary data sources as shape-aware resources (SRLs) that apps and extensions can use without copying data.
- Extensions — small, downloadable add-ons that integrate into the ecosystem and operate on shapes and SRLs.
Who benefits
Researchers, visualization platforms, edge devices, and privacy-conscious applications gain the most: ButterflyFX reduces data movement, simplifies context-rich queries, and enables richer interactions with complex spatial datasets.
Next steps
Explore the core, try the server, or download extensions from the home page. If you'd like, we can add examples, diagrams, and starter tutorials to this page.