endlos - A multithreaded fractal generator in Java

[dentaku]

This one runs on any computer with a Java 1.5 virtual machine or newer - twice as fast with Java 1.6:



=>  endlos

[ericbigas]

I see some cool features listed in the info pages but no mention of animation.  Can it do that?

[dentaku]

Nope, no animation so far. I thought about that, too. But Somehow, I would prefer real time zoomings instead. I'm working on batch calculations which I also want to use as a "demo" function to visit places of interest. If it's easy to implement, I will probably integrate animation. What animation would you expect?

[lycium]

What animation would you expect?

basically the ideal situation is to be able to place keyframes along a timeline, essentially "what i'm looking at now", then you do some spline interpolation along the timeline.

if you really want to make some hot animations then there are three especially important things to bear in mind:

1. motion blur - it's 2007 basically, there's no excuse for not having it you'll certainly agree when you see the output!
2. high dynamic range rendering - this goes especially well with the above to make really bright streaks.
3. interpolate the fractal parameters too (since you're rendering mandelbrots and julias, be sure to interpolate parameters for a triangle inequality average orbit trap!).

if you want to see an example of the above working together, check the animations at http://www.fractographer.com/wip ("test" series of files, needs xvid codec)

oh, one more thing: i don't know what the current status of the java opengl bindings is, more specifically whether or not it supports fragment progrems, but you could make some very fast animation previews with some hardware acceleration. modern gpus support 32bit floating point computations (and the latest are essentially ieee754 compliant) and can easily do those zooms in realtime: http://www.fractographer.com/propaganda/gf8800mandelbrot.png (that's without continuous escapetime, though you've said on sf that it doesn't hurt speed much).

btw gandreas, since you're reading this thread i'd be very interested to see some animations produced by quadrium using the above techniques! i also think you could benefit a lot from gpu acceleration...

[dentaku]

Code:

2006-12-25 : Version 0.10.0 - zooooooommm!
--------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Double clicking endlos.jar starts endlos instead of showing version information
     (if your system is configured to start Java on file types ".jar").
  2. Renamed scripts "start.sh"/"start.bat" to "startCustomUnix.sh"/"startCustomWindows.bat".

FIXED:
  1. File endlos_src.jar wasn't updated during last versions.

NEW:
  1. Introduced fast preview when zooming in. (Enabled by default as it doesn't hurt performance much.)
  2. Zooming factor is now configurable.
  3. Automatic saving of global preferences and settings of the last fractal window.
     (Next time you open endlos will generate the same fractal of your last session.)

http://endlos.sourceforge.net/

[dentaku]

2006-12-28 : Version 0.11.0 - threads & speed
--------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Replaced precision list box with a text field to set fine grained precision. No restriction anymore to
     fixed 32, 64, 128 Bit precision - use the best precision you need, up to unlimited precision!
  2. Tooltips now show longer (7 seconds).
 
NEW:
  1. Improved calculation speed.
  2. Thread priorities configurable.
  3. Pausing calculation of a fractal (for other fractals to speed up).

[dentaku]

2006-12-31 : Version 0.12.0 - persistence, speed & demos
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Increased performance of high precision mode through optimized algorithm.
  2. Reworked settings tabs for better grouping.
  3. Field 'Distance:' changed to 'Radius:' containing half the value of the former distance.
  4. Iteration buttons decrease/increase by 10 instead of 100.

FIXED:
  1. One operation didn't consider current precision leading to unlimited precision for this operation
     and therefore much longer calculation for black dots.
  2. Included GPL license.

NEW:
  1. Introduced saving and loading of fractal settings. Now you can re-generate your favourite fractals later again.
     And benchmark different computers. And create a best of collection. And share with friends. And ...
  2. Demos introduced: if the subdirectory "Demos" is available, a new main menu will appear with demo fractals.
  3. Introduced FAQ.

[Nahee_Enterprises]

All of these recent enhancements have really made a big difference in the abilities of your rendering program.  Great job on all the work you have been putting into this.   :-)

[dentaku]

Thanks! I have so much more ideas for this application. One of the next big steps will be additional fractal formulas - I also think of a generic formular editor - coding errors showed some very interesting alienized mandelbrots. I definitely plan to extend endlos to many more fields of fractals. 3D, Animation, etc. all those things I would like to see in endlos. Another field is optimizing. So far, I only look at technical optimizations. I didn't look at logic optimizations - endlos calculates brute force. I have so much fun coding this stuff!

BTW: I wrote my first fractal (Mandelbrot) many years ago on a C64 (320x200). The very first routine to save an image to the datasette took longer than to calculate the fractal ... 

[dentaku]

Code:

2007-01-08 : Version 0.13.0 - sweet Julia
---------------------------

CHANGED:
  1. Fractal frames don't store their dimension anymore as it caused some size problems. As the preferences
     also changed, you won't get all former preferences values anymore.
  2. Right mouse click into image shows popup menu instead of zooming out. Zoom out via middle mouse button.
     Therefore, former middle mouse function (reset) was removed. If you want to reset, you need to open a
     new fractal window (or set the corresponding coordinates + radius).
  3. Settings panel changed again.

FIXED:
  1. Preview image was slightly misplaced.

NEW:
  1. The exponent of the standard Mandelbrot formula (Zn+1 = Zn^2 + C) can be changed to other values than 2
     to generate cubic Mandelbrots and so on.
  2. New fractal type: Julia set.
  3. Right click on image shows popup menu with new functions:

     "Open location"   : clones the current window with click point centered.
     "Open Mandelbrot" : open a Mandelbrot fractal based on the click point location.
     "Open Julia"      : opens a Julia fractal based on the click point location.
     
     and save functions that formerly were in the settings panel. 

http://endlos.sourceforge.net/

[Jestre]

I just wanted to take a quick second to thank the author for this program.  I saw the 0.12 announcement on Freshmeat and began playing with it, and it has certainly peaked (seeded) my interest in fractals.  It is, in fact, why I am here now.

At this point I really have little clue what I'm doing, but I'm having fun exploring, so thank you!

[dentaku2]

@webadmin: I wasn't able to relogin to this forum anymore. Every attempt to reassign password failed - I also never received an email for "forgot your password" and I got just messages on this forum site that errors appeared or something failed. So I created a new account.

@Jestre: thank you very much! Can you tell me what operating system you run endlos on? And perhaps other hardware configuration (CPU, RAM)? I'm always interested in the target systems of endlos.

Version 0.14.0 is just around the corner - this time with a major improvement in coloring: recolor images don't need to recalculate the image anymore; no matter if you change the color map or toggle smoothing.    And this improvement opened the door to pseudo 3D fractals ... 

[Nahee_Enterprises]

Jestre wrote:
>
>    ....it has certainly peaked (seeded) my interest in fractals.
>    It is, in fact, why I am here now.

Greetings, and Welcome to this Forum!!     

[Nahee_Enterprises]

Dentaku wrote:
>
>    Version 0.14.0 is just around the corner - this time with a
>    major improvement in coloring:  recolor images don't need
>    to recalculate the image anymore; no matter if you change
>    the color map or toggle smoothing.     And this improvement
>    opened the door to pseudo 3D fractals ... 

Definitely looking forward to your next release!!   

And thanks for the continued efforts you are making with it, and for making it available to the public.

[dentaku2]

Me too!    I just have to improve the gui for fast color map changing and off it goes. In one of the next versions, I will introduce generic fractals. You will be able to write your own formulas in Java and endlos will compile it and integrate it in its iterator. When this works well, I will finally reach a 1.0.0 version. Yahoo!