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If the title "Floating Fractals 3.1d" is not big and blue... your textreader sucks!
Thank you for downloading this fractal learning tool.
Adam Smith is reachable (but not tangible) at: smithab@mailbox.syr.edu
for bug reports, suggestions, comments, whatever....
If you use my program, send me e-mail!!!!!! Especially if you use this as a fractal teaching tool. Yes, you are obligated.
Why this version is special:
This release of Floating Fractals for Power Macintosh uses a new graphics routine to achieve 3.5 times the graphics speed of version 3.0ß.
Running Floating Fractals:
Assuming you have downloaded the correct version for your machine (PPC, 68040 or 68K SANE if you have no FPU), you should be able to simply double click to launch. Details on actual operation of the program are given below in the “Using Floating Fractals” section, and memory problems are addressed in Technical Notes: Bugs, also below.
Do not use this product with any "non-prescription" drugs.
Files that comprise Floating Fractals:
ReadMe "Floating Fractals" (You are reading this now)
Floating Fractals 3.1d for Power Macintosh
Required Hardware Configuration:
Power Macintosh 8100, 7100 or 6100 w/cache. (of course)
832 by 624 monitor with Thousands of colors recommended.
This application is for use on Power Macintoshes. I created a 68040 version to benchmark against the Power Macs. Power Macintosh 8100 users running version 3.1 will see approximately 25-30 times the performance of the 68040 version on an 840AV :-)
Best calculation times for the default view (100 iterations on a 640 by 480 monitor):
Power Macintosh 7100/66 1.95 seconds
Centris 650 50 seconds
Using Floating Fractals:
Floating Fractals likes to avoid system crashes by intelligently enabling and disabling menu options. Initially, the options are stupid:
About Floating… Pops open my cool about/info boxes
Close Closes the main graphics window
Quit Quits, surprised?
Fractal Type Choose a complex function mapping
Iterations Select the maximum number of Iterations
Iteration Multiplier Selects a constant by which the number of iterations is multiplied
Set Glo Color™… Picks the root color of the Glo Color Table
Use Glo Colors™ Pre-selected. De-selecting enables HSV 'hue cycle' palattes.
Hide Info Window Hides the Window with info about the calculations.
Submenu choices which are checked are the defaults. These should be:
Mandelbrot Set for the type
1000 for the Maximum iteration number
1.0 for the Iteration Multiplier
Glo Colors™ (no, I did not trademark it, it just looks cooler that way)
The Main Viewing Sector (opened upon launch) will scale to your screen with a maximum size of 640 by 480 on monitors supporting 832 by 624 or larger displays.
You may have to pump up the iteration multiplier if you zoom way in. If out-of-set areas are not solid-colored, for example, or if the set is black and blotchy. A setting of 2500 for Maximum iterations should be enough for most of life's problems.
The Fractals:
The Mandelbrot Set: The famous one of the bunch. Hooray :-|
The Drawn and Quartered Mandelbrot: The Mandelbrot Set, with a hyperbolic-type singularity at the origin (division by zero!).
The True Delta Set: A manipulation of the Mandelbrot function. Contains miniature likenesses of itself and of the Mandelbrot Set (Look Hard!) See the sample PICTs for an example of this.
Others: Manifestations of my 3rd Stage Mind. These contain interesting spiral and fluid-like space-time discontinuous tensor manifold fields. (Whatever!)
Now, Fractalize! and enjoy.
New This Release (from version 2.0):
•All SetCPixel routines have been replaced with direct RAM writes for 3.5 times the graphics performance!
•You can now save PICT files!
•New About Box PICTs.
•New Info Window
•Now shows a cross cursor while selecting zoom areas
•New Fractals!
•New adjustable hue HSV palatte, plus the Glo Colors™ palatte!!!.
•Eats more RAM! (for a save buffer) Now a whopping 1.0Mb RAM chewer!
•Notice: New defaults for Iterations (1000)…
•New Formula to calculate Necessary Iterations
•New option "Iteration Multiplier" for manually forcing 2, 5 or 10 times more iterations
•No longer zooms into areas smaller than 4 pixels. This prevents zooming-into-a-single-pixel type accidents.
•Undo backs out of the last Zoom-In
•No longer erases your hard disk ;-)
Technical Notes:
The name "Floating Fractals" refers to two only things, and could thus be considered a condensed form of "Floating-Point Numeric Fractal Generator".
Code was generated with Metrowerks’ CodeWarrior C for PPC.
I used my trusty 7100 16/250 to test the 601 code, and on occasion,
our school's Q650's and a Q800 to test the '040 code. I also compiled the SANE version for 68K so that I could test the 68K application on my 882-less PowerMac in emulation-mode.
Other than what I have checked, there has been very little testing of this program. Bugs are likely, especially on computer configurations that are non-standard or not available for me to test this program on. This software has not been officially checked out on any 030 or 020 machines.
Specifications:
Floating Fractals is from my original C source. It uses a true RGB palatte, selected according to escape time (not by true point potential, however), and calculated from an HSV hue or value ramp. All GWorlds are 16-bit. All calulations are done with 64-bit doubles on the Powermacs. 80-bit 882 code on the rest. The other sample Fractal Sets provided, I made up. Most are not really near-self-similar like the Mandelbrot set, but they have some neat fluid patterns within.
Floating Fractals has a formula that determines how many iterations are to be done, based on the real number range of the viewing area. The number of iterations is proportional to the
log of the real number range. I provided a simple scalar control over this function, Iteration Multiplier. This allows you to multiply the number of iterations in cases where you do not feel that the picture is accurate enough.
Shortcomings:
1. The calculation routine locks up the interface and only offers the standard Command-period abort. I most likely will not fix this any time soon. On PowerMacs, calculation time is short enough that no one would want to background it (about 7 seconds for the default image on an 832 by 624 monitor).
2. The Algorithm for finding all-black areas is a hack. For speed on the 68K machines, I don’t do a thorough check of block border pixels. For this reason, You will see solid black block artifacts if you have the iterations number set too low or if you are cursed. Too bad.
3. Creates PICT files with it's own application signature, but cannot re-open them.
4. Still has no practical, real-world applications.
5. Still doesn't cure cancer either, sorry.
Possible Bugs/Acknowledged Problems:
1. Problem?: A large full-screen buffer is allocated on the System’s Heap (for Quickdraw). This may cause crashes (not on my computers) if you simply don’t have enough memory, although it will attempt to just warn you “Not Enough Available RAM!” (most likely scenario)
2. Problem!: I hacked this App between my engineering classes. Hey it was free, OK?
3. Problems: I still use too many exclamation points in my documentation!!! I dont yous spelcheking eathir.
Thanks to: (finally!):
“The New Galactic Emperor” here at syr.edu for suggesting function pointers to multiple fractals!, and for his numerous tips that kept me away from my debugger. Thanks to Tony Yang at Tufts for his on-line help in the aesthetics dept. and the time he spent testing this out. Thanks to everyone else who tried out my program but may not wish to be mentioned by name.
The Fine Print (Read Carefully!)
Floating Fractals 3.1 by Adam Smith, Nov, 1994. You take the risks, should any exist. I am not a computer scientist (yeah!); I am a janitor at Syracuse University, Techno-MIDI junky and former //e programmer who just thinks Macs and Fractals are cool beans!) This software is freeware, but I retain all my rights to it. You may not use this software for any commercial purposes without consent from its author (me). As this is a learning tool, distribution without the accompanying documentation is strongly discouraged, as is distribution of only one machine's version of the software. No, I am not really a janitor! Quickdraw, Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
