Kalles Fraktaler 2

[Dinkydau]

Great, that is very critical to make your program suitable for exploring. It's still difficult to go extremely deep, like really extreme. If you could manage to let it start rendering from the center and in stages, or not even in stages, that would make a very huge difference.

[Kalles Fraktaler]

I just got an idea of having the threads pick pixels from a central pixel managing class instead of managing their own sections.
It was fairly easy to implement and don't affect performance, so I have made another update, 2.0.9.

Don't have too big expectations though, since my way of correcting glitches requires you to wait until the whole picture is done before the glitches are corrected.

[hapf]

How do you detect glitches? All pixels with the same number of iterations?

[Kalles Fraktaler]

How do you detect glitches? All pixels with the same number of iterations?

Yes, I find the largest area with the highest, and the same, iteration count. The blobs must be at least 3x3 pixels. So this is more a visual than a mathematical search and it is not able to handle all cases.

[Chillheimer]

Hello!
First of all: Thank you so much for your dedicated work and sharing it with us all here! and for free!
It's incredible.
The unbelievable speed - it's a paradigm shift, I'm shure Benoit would have loved to see that! You're doing great work!
and all that with just 240kb of code!!! it's mindblowing!

I just discovered your program yesterday - browsing youtube-zoom videos. I couldn't believe how any machine could render videos that deep. And mistakenly thought Kalles Fractaler was the name of one guy, not a program. Ah, what a good day, and I've been having lots of fun with the program...  
fractal xtreme has been rendering for days on one image not that deep - and I've been diving deeper and deeper on my old laptop with kalles fractaler...

But lots of questions emerge.. I hope this is the right place to ask them..
1.is there any sort of manual? there are quite a lot of parameters that I don't know how to handle or understand.
2.how can i  influence size beyond my screen? all I seem to be able is to pull the window open as far as possible. and is there a anti aliasing feature?
-edit- found out at youtube, that antia aliasing works through the backwards-rendering. still: how can I do this for a single picture?
3.how can I slow down zoom movies below 1 percent? I want to achieve a tranquil movement and don't know how to do this.. (i use virtual dub to put together the jpgs, correct starting point?)
4. where can i remove the written zoom-level top left?
5. more to come  

As I come from fractal extreme, I'd like to mention some feature wishes that I really miss.
I don't want to bug you with stuff - it's already incredible! but maybe some feedback what people would like to see is appreciated?
I'd actually really would like to pay a fair amount for this programm, even more so if I had some minor(?) features added.. I'll just toss them in here:

-colour cycling (esp. in video)
-rotating in videos
-a good way to find the right zoom tempo in videos, right now it seems to be guessing or calculating? some sort of fixed number like in fractal extreme, where I now 0.8 is my favourite speed.. -- variable zoom tempo for interesting regions would be a blast!
-an automatic max-iteration finder (find highest iteration does not do anything here, I dont see anything happening) to set the number of max iterations at an optimum to save processing?
-box-zooming, drawing the size of a box to zoom in, or even better, mousewheel zooming..
- more to come

Anyways, again, thank you for the great work!

cheers,
chilli


ps: what is that sideway view of the mandelbrotset called?
where you see the zooming in-movement on a "spectrogramm"-like view from left to right?

[Kalles Fraktaler]

Hi Chillheimer, thanks for your kind words!

Fraktal is swedish for fractal, Fraktaler is plural, and Kalle is a common swedish nick-name for my name Karl, therefore Kalles Fraktaler, not a fancy name at all, I know...
I have made many updates on the program since the latest release but I haven't put it available on my web-page yet. I was kind of waiting until someone would ask, also to know if anyone was using it at all. If no one is using it, I would not made any updates available

Feedback is very appreciated. But I don't want to charge for my program. It would give me responsibility and this is only a hobby program so I may not always be available to correct things. The big job is made by K.I.Martin that shared the pertubation and series approximation methods, and he shared for free. And... I wont make a fortune anyway...

1. No manual yet, I should perhaps put a description on my web-page. Some of the menu items are there for only my debugging.
2. You can store a jpeg image in any size, but then you cannot manually correct glitches. I've already separated the image from the window size, so it would be possible to have them managed separately. If image shrinking can be considered anti-aliasing?
3. I have now abandoned my previous video frame rendering method and are currently doing it the same way as fx, with key frames for every power of 2. But that requires another program that creates the movies by combining the frames, I have made such program but it does not have any UI yet.
4. With the power of 2 rendering the other program set this text instead. Don't you want it? I think this text is a main part of my fascination of the infinity of the Mandelbrot set though.
5. Colour cycling. Interesting, could be done also with the power of 2 method, if also the iterations for every pixel is stored...
6. Rotating, could perhaps be done in the video creating program, but with the cost of using only the center of each frame image...
7. With the power of 2 method it is easier to control the speed, at least per frame, and it can be as slow as wanted. It makes it also possible to correct and replace frames with glitches that were not automatically corrected.
8. Find highest iteration just puts the cursor over the pixel with the highest iteration and was used for debugging. The Find Minibrot function handles maximum iterations automatically, so the same could be used when exploring.
9. Box-zooming, isn't that already there? And I don't even have a mouse on my laptop, and no mouse wheel...

I am not sure the sideview turned out that good, did it?
Cheers

[Chillheimer]

Feedback is very appreciated. But I don't want to charge for my program. It would give me responsibility and this is only a hobby program so I may not always be available to correct things. The big job is made by K.I.Martin that shared the pertubation and series approximation methods, and he shared for free. And... I wont make a fortune anyway...

I understand that..
If you're in contact with K.I.Martin, please send him greetings and huge thanks! I don't understand how this new method doesn't create a huge fuss in this forum. It is at the core of what happens here and nearly noone seems to be interested... very strange. probably because everyone is so much focussed on 3d-fractals now. but I guess the time will come, then you and mr. Martin will be overwhelmed with praise

btw, do you think that method will work for 3d too?

1. No manual yet, I should perhaps put a description on my web-page. Some of the menu items are there for only my debugging.
--yeah, please do! or if it is easier, a short mouseover-description would be enough

2. You can store a jpeg image in any size, but then you cannot manually correct glitches. I've already separated the image from the window size, so it would be possible to have them managed separately. If image shrinking can be considered anti-aliasing?
--I don't know, but don't think simple shrinking has the same effect. but I'm sure a graphic program can shrink with anti-aliasing, so the possibility to render big images is already a workaround. but how do you set the size then, could you please descibe it shortly?

3. I have now abandoned my previous video frame rendering method and are currently doing it the same way as fx, with key frames for every power of 2. But that requires another program that creates the movies by combining the frames, I have made such program but it does not have any UI yet.
--I really hope that this doesn't change the speed, and especially not the great quality and perfect details at the image-edges (that blurriness outside of the 'keyframes' is the most annoying 'feature' of fractal xtreme for me)
some ideas for ui follow below

4. With the power of 2 rendering the other program set this text instead. Don't you want it? I think this text is a main part of my fascination of the infinity of the Mandelbrot set though.
--yes, I'd love to get my hands on it!
what do you mean with "this text"?
...
8. Find highest iteration just puts the cursor over the pixel with the highest iteration and was used for debugging. The Find Minibrot function handles maximum iterations automatically, so the same could be used when exploring.
9. Box-zooming, isn't that already there? And I don't even have a mouse on my laptop, and no mouse wheel...
-----I meant drawing the size of the box instead of having to go into a menu to choose the size.. would be nicer for the 'work'flow.. but not a must-have at all..  

I am not sure the sideview turned out that good, did it?
---- you are right, BUT! I just wanted to make sure you know what I'm talking about so you understand my UI-idea..
I imagine automation of interesting video-parameters on the timeline of the sideview. To give you an idea, I mean something remotely similar to the automation I use in my daily work:

(of course just one track and unbroken)
so in the sideview you can see where you are in the fractal and what is happening. when there is something interesting you could for example decrease the speed so one has time to appreciate the details.
other interesting parameters would be:
-colourmap (but maybe not a pre-fixed one, but setting the colours in the timeline itself, so one can give desired areas exactly the colour you want. I'd really love to be able to do this in zoom movies.
-rotation and its speed
-and it would be a great navigator through the video itself.

I have absolutely no idea how complicated something like that is to program - but wouldn't it be awesome?  


cheers,
Chilli

[Kalles Fraktaler]

Mrflay is on the forum from time to time I think.

People may think Mandelbrot is over-explored, but for me that first saw it in the 80s it will never stop being fascinating, and now it is possible to explore it in depths that we could only dream of for decades.

2. Isn't there a small dialog displayed when you want to save as jpeg, where the size can be specified? It might be that I have added that too recently.

3. I have not compared the rendering time in detail. It is of course unnecessary to render the center of the frames many times, but much less frames needs to be rendered. I have used this method since my 39th movie, I cannot see that it is much more blurry than my 38th movie?

4. I meant the "Zoom:" text in the upper left corner, that you want to get rid of

Ok, with sideview I thought you meant my little 3D animation.
The functionality you described is for my other program, that put together the key frames. You mentioned virtual dub to put the jpegs together when they were one image for each frame, are there any similar programs already available that can put together power of 2 key frames? My current program creates avi files, it does not handle audio, it does not have any UI and I am changing the program to get differences in speed for each movie. I then import the avi files into Microsoft Movie-maker to create the final video.

[Dinkydau]

I have made many updates on the program since the latest release but I haven't put it available on my web-page yet. I was kind of waiting until someone would ask, also to know if anyone was using it at all. If no one is using it, I would not made any updates available

Please do release new versions.

[simon.snake]

I've been using it too.

Thankfully, even the odd random crash doesn't put me off as it is usually possible to resume when starting the program again.

I only wish I could optionally turn off the small magnification window as I only use it some of the time.

[DustyMonkey]

I created an account here today in order to also ask for updates to your renderer.

[Chillheimer]

People may think Mandelbrot is over-explored, but for me that first saw it in the 80s it will never stop being fascinating, and now it is possible to explore it in depths that we could only dream of for decades.

agreed - how could such a beauty ever be overexplored..

2. Isn't there a small dialog displayed when you want to save as jpeg, where the size can be specified? It might be that I have added that too recently.

Yes there is.    How could I miss that? I guess I never tried to export a jpg,because I thought "I wouldn't want it in that small window size" and then didn't export. Sorry..

3. I have used this method since my 39th movie, I cannot see that it is much more blurry than my 38th movie?

no it isn't, seems to work great..

4. I meant the "Zoom:" text in the upper left corner, that you want to get rid of

Ah, ok... although it is indeed fascinating and very interesting, I'd love to have a checkbox to disable it for some videos..

Ok, with sideview I thought you meant my little 3D animation.
The functionality you described is for my other program, that put together the key frames. You mentioned virtual dub to put the jpegs together when they were one image for each frame, are there any similar programs already available that can put together power of 2 key frames? My current program creates avi files, it does not handle audio, it does not have any UI and I am changing the program to get differences in speed for each movie. I then import the avi files into Microsoft Movie-maker to create the final video.

I don't know of any programs that do this - but then, I'm a musician and not a video-specialist..
No problem that your current programm doesn't handle audio, one can add that with other tools. although in the long term it would be great if in combination with the sideview one could had some sort of grid, that shows typical timemarks, 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars andso on - to match music with video..
What do you think of the sideview-idea? interesting? and more important - programmable?


I second dustmonkey - please share the update! even if it's a beta.. I'd love to get my hands on it!

[Kalles Fraktaler]

I just made my latest version available on my page
http://biphome.spray.se/karl.runmo/fraktal2.htm

Most updates are on the glitch detection and the color handling.

With the new zoom sequence animation, the size of the executables are even smaller, 180kb (32-bit) resp. 194kb (64-bit)

[blob]

I just made my latest version available on my page
http://biphome.spray.se/karl.runmo/fraktal2.htm
Most updates are on the glitch detection and the color handling.

Thanks! 

[hsmyers]

Not be a grammar or spelling pendant    , but here is the upper text on you webpage corrected:

Kalles Fraktaler 2
Mandelbrot fractals are fascinating both for the esthetic beauty and also because they are truly infinite.

Recently a new method was developed to render Mandelbrot fractal images from a reference point rather than calculating the escape-speed for each pixel. Since lower precision then can be used, the time to render images decreases significantly.
For details see sft_maths.pdf

My humble thanks to K.I.Martin for sharing his mathematical findings, which I think are as big a discovery as the Mandelbrot formula itself.

For feedback and discussions follow this link http://www.fractalforums.com/announcements-and-news/kalles-fraktaler-2/
Update Version 2.0.6: The perturbation glitches are corrected automatically (can be disabled)
Update Version 2.0.9: Render from center and out (instead of sections)
Update Version 2.0.10: Improved glitch correction and colour dialog.
        Zoom sequence is now rendered with the "power of 2" method. The previous video rendering program doesn't work anymore. A program that can convert the images to a movie will follow shortly.

Absolutely great program! 
Keep them coming!

-hsm