Gnofract 4D: For when 2D fractals just aren't weird enough | ||
---|---|---|
<<< Previous | Next >>> |
You can set all the fractal's parameters from here. Settings are divided into Fractal Settings and Preferences. Fractal Settings are saved in the fractal's .fct file - they are properties of the fractal itself. By contrast, preferences are your preferences for Gnofract 4D's general behavior and are saved in Gnofract 4D's config file (~/.gnome/gnofract4d). Colors are also saved in the .fct file.
Allows you to choose which fractal type to draw. See the Section called Fractal Types for details of the types available.
Some fractal types (such as the Quadratic fractal) have additional parameters which you can set. These are displayed here. What parameters there are depends on the fractal type.
This has various options to trade off image quality against rendering time and generally change the appearance of the image. Antialiasing makes the image smoother and nice looking, but takes a lot longer to draw (up to five times longer). Default antialiasing is quite a lot faster than Best mode, but can miss some small details. Max Iterations sets the number of iterations a point will go through before we give up and assume it's a member of the Julibrot. If Auto Deepening is on, the maximum number of iterations is set automatically by Gnofract 4D but you can change it by hand whenever you like. Inner and Outer select the function used to translate the raw fractal data into colors, for the inside and outside of the set respectively. The functions have the following effects: Iteration Count uses the number of iterations required to bail out to set the color directly. Continuous Potential gives a much smoother image, by basing the color not only on how many iterations the point took to escape, but on how far away from the origin it ended up on its last iteration. Ejection Distance ignores the count altogether and uses only the distance. Decomposition chooses one of four colors based on the location in the complex plane of the point's final position. Angle translates the angle between the point's final position and the x-axis into a color.
The Bailout Function is used to decide whether a point has left the set. If function(z) is greater than the Distance, the point has left the set. A few functions don't work very well with some fractal types, for example Barnsley fractals don't mix well with the Or bailout function.
Width and Height should set the size of the image in pixels, but for annoying reasons can only increase the size of the image, not shrink it. The Location entryboxes allow you to change the coordinates of the screen center and the image size. The Angles tab allows you to set the rotation angles. Only values between 0 and 2 * pi are different; values outside this range "wrap" to points inside that range.
The Color Browser is designed to let you quickly choose a color scheme which suits the current fractal, by generating a set of previews to choose between. To update the previews to match the current fractal, click Refresh. To apply a colormap to the main image, click the map.
There's only one set of preferences at the moment- the compiler preferences. Gnofract 4D needs a C++ compiler to be available at runtime in order to work (it dynamically creates the code to compute a particular fractal when you ask for that fractal). This section allows you to specify a location for the compiler and options to pass to it. If Gnofract 4D is working fine, I suggest you leave this area alone.
<<< Previous | Home | Next >>> |
File Menu | About Gnofract 4D |