Mandelbulber 0.93

[Buddhi]

Mandelbulber 0.93 - for Linux x86, Linux x64 and also for Win32

Open source program (GNU GPL) for rendering photo-realistic 3D fractals

Free download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mandelbulber/

New features in version 0.93:

- added switch for zooming mode - enables old zooming behavior
- start frame and end frame are used also for render animation in path mode
- fixed bug: rendering was progressive during recording flight path - now progressive mode is disabled
- fixed bug: added proper gdk threading guards in timer callback
- fixed bug: program crashed during saving image in PNG 16-bit format


Before first run please use install script

SVN repository: http://mandelbulber.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
This repository is available from Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/mandelbulber/

My gallery with images created using Mandelbulber: http://krzysztofmarczak.deviantart.com/gallery/

[knighty]

It's getting better and better 
Keep up the good work

[Thunderwave]

Oh, no... I can't run it.  I don't have those OSs.

[fpsurgeon]

Since upgrading from version 0.90 to version 0.93, mandelbulber now crashes predictably and consistently when trying to render an animation that does not start from frame 0. This is under Windows XP (an XP guest in Virtualbox, actually). This rarely occurred under version 0.90, but then it would only happen with certain values for the "Frames per key".

The specific windows error is:

    The instruction at "0x7c90100b" referenced memory at "0x00000034". The memory could not be "read".

    Click on OK to terminate the program
    Click on CANCEL to debug the program

Looking at the log.txt file, it seems to load all the keyframes, then crash...just when rendering should start.

Still frames render just fine individually and, as I said, this did not happen under 0.90. (I didn't try 0.91 or 0.92, btw).

Any ideas?

Other than that, it's an outstandingly cool piece of software! Thanks for creating it! 

[Buddhi]

Since upgrading from version 0.90 to version 0.93, mandelbulber now crashes predictably and consistently when trying to render an animation that does not start from frame 0. This is under Windows XP (an XP guest in Virtualbox, actually). This rarely occurred under version 0.90, but then it would only happen with certain values for the "Frames per key".

Thank you for info about bug. I have just checked it and located the mistake in program.
Next version of Mandelbulber is very advanced and will be released in few weeks. There will be timeline view for keyframe animations and some other improvements.
If you want to track what is changed in Mandelbulber please visit http://code.google.com/p/mandelbulber/source/list


 

[fpsurgeon]

Thanks, Buddhi! Glad I was able to give you enough info to locate the bug. I'll definitely be looking forward to the new version.

BTW, the linux version of 0.93 also hangs when rendering an animation, even starting from 0, but it's a less well-defined problem. Again, I'm running it in Virtualbox (on my Mac host, Ubuntu 10.04 as the guest OS). It'll render out the first few frames and then just hang at the part where it should be saving the image out to disk. Don't know if this helps you much, though. LMK if there's anything I could forward you on this. (I also have an actual physical machine running Ubuntu 10.04, but I haven't put the 0.93 version on it yet. 0.90 works perfectly on it, though).

[Russ McClay]

Really great program.  Tonight was trying to use the "Render from Keyframes" after recording a few key-frames, but it crashes the program every time. No error.

Record Path and then rendering is no problem.

Using Windows 7, 32-bit.

Everything else seems fine.

Is there something I could try to test the Render from Keyframes function?

[Added:]

Just did some more testing.  In the console window it shows "Found 0 keyframes" if I use the default location (and my keyframe files are there). Tried moving the keyframes to another directory, set the directory in the settings, same thing.  But, if I use the Next Keyframe Load, then render, no problem.  So it's finding the keyframes with that function but not Render from key-frames.

Software debugging...always the fun part of development!

-r

[Buddhi]

Unfortunately there are some bugs in version 0.93 which cause crashing in keyframe animation mode. Please wait about one week for newer version. It is almost ready for release.

[FractalFoundation]

Thanks for the update, krzysztof - I check the Forums every day to see if the new version is up
Good luck crushing the bugs, and know that your fans eagerly await the next version of Mandelbulber!

Thanks,

[Russ McClay]

Hi Buddhi --

Unfortunately there are some bugs in version 0.93 which cause crashing in keyframe animation mode. Please wait about one week for newer version. It is almost ready for release.

Thanks for the reply!  I'm anxious to try the newer version, but no rush! =)

Russ

[jwm-art]

Hiya Buddhi,

Absolutely amazingly awesome program!

I'm a bit confused though about some of the settings and have a few questions

1a) Jesse has been talking about 'rotations' in some of his new images[1] with regard to the mandelbox fractal. Are these rotations the same as the spherical folding options in mandelbulber? see:  http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=3833

1b) If not, can you implement these rotations please, please, please?

1c) I've only just realized the spherical folding works without ticking it - wow this really is the amazing  fractal
  -- the checkboxes for the folding options should be made inactive when the mandelbox fractal is in use to indicate to the user that both of these folding options are active. (something I am capable of doing, but I don't know when I'll have time).



2) I'm confused about how the hybrid settings interact with the fractal settings, particularly in respect of the power/scale setting. I expected the main power/scale setting to be multiplied by each of the hybrid types but this is not the case.

  * on fractal tab, set fractal to hybrid, and power/scale to 2
  * on hybrid tab #1 as mandelbox, iter 1, power/scale 1, #2 as trigometric, iter 1, power/scale 4
  * render

now compare with

  * on fractal tab, set fractal to hybrid, and power/scale to 1
  * on hybrid tab #1 as mandelbox, iter 1, power/scale 2, #2 as trigometric, iter 1, power/scale 8
  * render

Very interesting results, I like it, but hard to make sense of...  though I guess some of my confusion arises from not understanding the 3d fractals themselves.

3)Does the gtk progress bar have data written to it from many threads by any chance? Valgrind tells me there's a problem with it (segfault when quitting out during a render) (I got stuck tracking it further because of a problem with my setup and valgrind reporting thousands of strcmp errors in libc).

4)I keep thinking the Depth Of Field needs another parameter but I'm unsure/maybe confused (again). The radius effects how blurry yes? I want  control the steps from in-focus to max-out-of-focus - linear steps, logarithmic, curve etc - does that make sense or does it defy the laws of physics?

Other than that, it's a damn good.

James.

[jwm-art]

Ah, I see what's going on. I had associated fixed-radius and min.radius as parameters only of spherical-folding-mode.

By the way, I keep right-clicking to zoom out after a zoom in yields no interest, could that be added?

[Buddhi]

Hi James

I will try to answer your questions

Ad 1a) Now I'm during implementing these rotations. Today I have achieved interesting results. It will be in next version of Mandelbulber (0.95)

Ad 1b) See 1a

Ad 2) When hybrid formula is selected then main power/scale has no influence on fractal. In next version I will try to do disabling of needless functions.

Ad 3) Only one thread (main) writes to gtk progress bar. In version 0.94 many things have been corrected. Marius showed me how to use valgrind tool and fixed many errors. However I will check it again.

Ad 4) DOF radius is strength of blur. I made this effect using laws of physics. Like in photo camera you have only two parameters: focus distance and aperture (aperture changes blur strength).