Export to vector (or the next best thing) [mandelbulber]

[ponnuki]

Hi there,

I am trying to :

- Build a model in mandelbulber
- Save it in a format that is simple to create a vector (svg) from it
- Get that svg to a plotter.

I understand that mandelbulber cannot simply export to vector, it wouldn't really make sense. So I was wondering if there is a way to export a project with only the vertices to be a certain color (say black) while the faces are white, so that it become 'simpler' to create a vector from it. Some sort of a wire frame, but I don't want to see the whole wireframe of an object, just the visible part. I want to work on simple menger sponge, with simple cubes or pyramid as base shape.

Hope that makes sense and that there is a way to create such a shape.

I'm on linux and has been experimenting with Mandelbulber but I am open to use other tools as needed.


thanks!

[zebastian]

hi ponnuki,

if you only want to make a unified stroke width black and white image of the fractal surface with the black lines indicating the edges, do the following:
- render the image
- open up the image in inkscape
- hit menu > path > trace bitmap
- select edge detection and ok
- remove the original image
- right click in the left and white image and click "fill and stroke"
- click on fill and press X (disable filling)
- click on stroke paint press right of x (show stroke)
- click on stroke style select proper stroke width
now you should have something "plottable" with a needle printer.
see also example attached.

If you have questions or have something completely different on your mind go ahead and ask.

[zebastian]

and this would be the output

[zebastian]

i cannot post the svg, since it is more than 1MB in size

[Sockratease]

i cannot post the svg, since it is more than 1MB in size

Have you tried posting the svg to our Gallery?

It may be an allowed extension and the file size limit is much better.  

If it's not an allowed extension, I'll see if we can add it  

[zebastian]

@Sockratease thanks for the info, but i am getting:

"Not a valid picture file.
The following extension is not allowed for the gallery bmp"

Though the file is a proper svg file. should be an "ordinary" output file of inkscape.

[Sockratease]

@Sockratease thanks for the info, but i am getting:

"Not a valid picture file.
The following extension is not allowed for the gallery bmp"

Though the file is a proper svg file. should be an "ordinary" output file of inkscape.

I had a look at the settings for the gallery without touching anything, and it looks like it only allows us to forbid certain file extensions, not allow any specific ones.

{EDIT - bmp is the only format on the forbidden list, thus it's in the error you got}

It's a pre-made gallery add on for the forum.  I'm not sure if we can add to it or not...

I'll ask Christian - he (understandably) doesn't like anybody messing with the gallery settings but him  

I'll let you know how that goes.  Meanwhile, have you checked places like Deviant Art?  They have generous file limits too.  Then there's the zip file and host method...  svg compresses nicely!  Any chance of putting into a zip or rar file and getting it under 1 MB?

[Sockratease]

OK - svg does work in the gallery.

http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=19359

Apparently there is something non-standard about something somewhere or yours should have worked.

Maybe try another software to open and re-save it so it meets whatever mysterious criteria our gallery wants for it to upload.

Apparently it worked the whole time as Christian uploaded that without any changes to the gallery, so something is weird somewhere...


EDIT - just did a check of the actual image and the gallery may have converted it since it loads as a png.  Now I am even more confused...

[cKleinhuis]

the gallery converts and resizes overly large images, and converts them obviously all, the behaviour is ok, the check for file type is solely based on file extension, so a png file with a .bmp suffix will get rejected

[zebastian]

tried again with zip file, but page is still complaining about bmp.
@Sockratease / cKleinhuis: Never mind, the idea should be clear and the target.jpg pretty much looks like the produced svg.

[Sockratease]

tried again with zip file, but page is still complaining about bmp.
@Sockratease / cKleinhuis: Never mind, the idea should be clear and the target.jpg pretty much looks like the produced svg.

Oh - I thought you wanted the svg for some sort of specialized 3D Application or other things that require it.  If it's just to display the image, svg is not considered a web standard image format despite opening in most browsers.

As for the zip file, the gallery only accepts images - I meant to use the zip as an attachment if it compresses to under the size limit  (the gallery has a very generous file size limit but attachments were never meant for images at all).  And again, the only reason it complains about bmp files is that they are the only format on it's forbidden file extension list.  If there were more, it would likely list them all.

It simply does not recognize your svg as an image for some reason - and zip is obviously not an image - so I'm sorry to say we are kind of stuck.

Thanks for understanding.  At least we tried...