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Author Topic: yFractalExplorer alpha released!  (Read 4082 times)
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yv3
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« on: November 23, 2010, 11:05:36 PM »


     yFractalExplorer

A Tribute to Fractint and Benoit Mandelbrot

I am proud to present you the alpha version of my realtime fractal rendering tool that i called yFractalExplorer.

After finishing my ASCII game engine i came across a small piece of Code that rendered a Mandelbrot fractal and zoomed into it in old school Text Mode. I also wanted to try it out with my own engine and so my biggest project began :). I had the idea to create a minimalistic and unique tool to discover the beauty of math. The user should not need any math knowledge and the Fractal that is drawn had to be rendered in realtime so everyone could modify it easily and see how it changes to another shape smoothly. I integrated two display/operating modes into the program to achieve my tasks:

Explore Mode

In "Explore Mode" you "fly" around and modify the current fractal in realtime until its looks interesting for you:







Render Mode

In "Render Mode" you see how the final fractal looks like, you can change the color palette, cycle the colors (beware not to fall asleep:)), render it to a file or set as your desktop wallpaper:





Features

- Unique "Random Fractals" that provide almost infinite number of shapes out of a single fractal type. You will never see the same fractal again. This is a feature that most other fractal tools do not provide
- Lovely self-made Text Mode simulation engine with intuitive user interface. There are plenty of options to customize the Text Mode for all nostalgic nerds out there
- Fast OpenGL rendering pipeline with hardware acceleration to ensure exploring the beautiful world of math (mostly) at 60 frames per second in Fullscreen.
- 145 cool palettes imported from Fractint to color the fractals with
- Psychedelic realtime color cycling, this is also a function that is rarely found in other fractal tools
- Write to file-function to render huge image files that can be later printed out in perfect quality
- Create unique and beautiful wallpapers with a single keystroke
- Full keyboard support (optimized for both laptops and PC's) and additional mouse support for better usability
- No ads and other bull****, free mindware

This is how it looks like in action:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/oWLEJ-n1Jt4&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/oWLEJ-n1Jt4&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

You can download it at my Forums (http://yv3.bplaced.net/forum/index.php?topic=53.msg54#msg54) or directly from http://yv3.bplaced.net/files/yFractalExplorer.exe

Enjoy

Pls share your opinions and suggestions with me.

Make sure you install it to a folder with admin rights on Vista an Win7 (sorry, better installer will come soon).
More functions and fractals will come in release version 1.0. Watch out!
bye



Update 05.12.2010: Fixed problems with Windows XP (error messages regarding missing DLL's should not appear anymore), added two new Fractals and fixed some smaller things


« Last Edit: December 05, 2010, 11:18:10 AM by yv3 » Logged

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cKleinhuis
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« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2010, 12:44:45 AM »

lol, funny app with crazy interface and nice outcomes, what do you mean by you get an unique fractal ? you mean position/colors are randomized ?
does it feature hybrid formulas ?
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ker2x
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« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2010, 01:06:32 AM »

i can't believe i didn't tought of it...  angry
Really cool ! does it use the libcaca ?
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yv3
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« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2010, 12:33:52 PM »

@trifox:
There are some "Random" fractal types i created. I havent seen such a prefabricated function in other tools. The idea ist not to randomize fractal parameters but randomize the behaviour of "z" when iterating a single pixel. The whole rendering begins always with a fixed random seed to ensure that the pseudo random numbers that are generated in following are the same and the fractal don't look like noise. Now you can seed the seed by pressing space, and the whole fractal changes. This function gives you tons of possibilities, because you have often three random ranges that you can modify in realtime and apply to the fractal like in my video. Try it out, hold the keys 1-6, additionally with Ctrl and Shift and see what i mean. Currently i created only Mandelbrot variations with randomness but in future will follow Julia and Newton fractals and some more. When my understading of complex math is better i will try create more unique fractals. My next idea is to combine a static fractal generation (without randomness) with external, digitalized analogoue input like from a microphone or a picture (video would be cool but probably to much time consuming for me now). There are analogies between fractals and the world outside the computer, escpecially in growth processes. Maybe if i combine both something cool will come out. I am bad in math and i can't exactly describe right know what i try to do, but i got a feeling that something cool could arise from this. More to come.

@ker2x: Pleased to hear that you like it smiley. No, it uses an ASCII-Engine that was developed completely from scratch by me. It is based on SDL and OpenGL. Ive tried many other libraries but finally did it by myself because i wasn't satisfied with speed, look, Windows-/SDL-/OpenGL-compatibility or fullscreen-capability.

The final release version 1.0 will also have some more fractal types, a gallery function to watch the Screenshots and File Renderings in the tool and a palette overview in rendering mode. Also wanted to improve the old school block mouse cursor so its more visible and add zooming with a rectangular selection on the fractal (both text and graphics mode) for slower machines. Some other improvements and fixes will be done. I will keep you up to date.

If someone saw a similar tool that randomizes the iteration process, plz let me know. Maybe i can be inspired of it and make something more cooler.
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« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2010, 12:45:10 PM »

aha quite interesting that this method leads to useful results,
perhaps you could be interested in a fractal program that i used to write some time ago:
http://fractalmovies.com/index.php?/categories/2-Fractal-Software

it is called mutatorkammer, and the idea of the program was to genetically evolve complex functions which can be iterated,
i thought that randomly iterating a complex function could lead to interesting results, and in fact the program produced "interesting"
results, but i think that a complete random evolving of formulas is quite arbitrary, but i think that the hybrid/alternating formula variants
are leading to the most interesting results, combining existing fractals

to your method, what do you mean by randomly changing the behaviour ? you add some random values ( dont think so ), or do you
change the calculation method ?!
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yv3
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« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2010, 01:06:57 PM »

@Trifox: I mean the formula of the fractal stays the same, but i add/multiply/divide (etc) a random number in a given range to the current real and imaginary part of z on each iteration. I also wondered that it produces such intresting fractals smiley Check out my Gallery at http://yv3.bplaced.net/gallery/yFractalExplorer/, most of these images are rendered with this random technique. I discovered them while i was developing the application.
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« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2010, 01:30:59 PM »

i see, you add/divide/multiply with a random number at each iteration step e.g. when a certain treshold of a random function is above a certain value ?

ok, another question, the colorings look like orbit traps, what coloring options you have implemented ?

cant really believe that this "randomness" leads to senseful results ..  because your fillings are "smooth" i mean that if you really would use a randomness,
it should be visible noise in the image, or you use the same random values for each iteration/pixel ? that would make a little bit more sense in my eyes...
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divide and conquer - iterate and rule - chaos is No random!
yv3
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« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2010, 03:03:43 PM »

@Trifox:
No, its simpler. You just generate a random number between min and max (-1.0 and 1.0) for instance, then apply it to real and/or imaginary part of z on each iteration, not each pixel. The randomness must be applied on the iteration, not on the pixel position or color etc. You can also raise imag/real part to power of a random number for instance. I won't tell more about it, try it out if youre intrested smiley You can try out it with my tool, the first random fractal from above in the menu has the simplest random function, the one in the video is more complicated, its a secret wink

I use a very simple coloring method, color=int( float(last_iter) * (num_of_colors/max_iterations)). No post processing. Maybe i will add some other methods later, but im rather minimalistic regarding the colours.

The first random number (seed) when beginning rendering the image is always the same. Thats most important to aviod noise.

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