Which forum for novice queries?

[terrypin]

I looked back through the thread, and didn't see an example?

Here it is, from my earlier post:

"For example, I just opened the program, selected the third title from the top, Apophysis-070820-3, waited a couple of seconds for it to display, decided I liked the look of it, and clicked 'Render to disk'. That's running as I finish typing this, and tells me it needs 68 MB, and the filename will be Apophysis-070820-3.png. OK, after several minutes, it's now finished, so I can examine the file. It's 1.3 MB, and when opened in IrfanView looks very similar to the image displayed in the Apophysis main window. Which I could capture in an instant with Prt Scrn, crop, and get a file of identical resolution. What am I missing? Is there perhaps also a 68 MB file somewhere I haven't discovered?"

(BTW, I see those serially-numbered 'flames' keep changing. How would I now get back to say 070820-3?)

Anyway, no need to try it now thanks. Lycium has explained that the 68 MB is for internal use during the rendering. And I think the penny has finally dropped here. If I compare these two from Apophysis-070821-3, as seen on my 1024 x 768 screen:

a) the rendered PNG, size 1.03 MB, dimensions 855 x 651, time to make about 65 minutes.
b) my capture of it from the main window directly before rendering, size 368 KB, 1017 x 654, time to make about 1 sec

then the render looks better, despite its (unintended) smaller size. However, probably not 65 minutes worth better, IMO! IOW, if I wanted say a dramatic (still) background for the menu of a family DVD I make, something a bit different to my usual stock, then I'd be happy enough to scan down the list, choose one, and capture it. Of course, if I happened to be going off for a long lunch or to bed, then the richer rendered version would be viable.

BTW, would I normally need permission from the flame's author before doing that?

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK


--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[lycium]

no permission would be necessary, as the "author" of that flame is your computer for example, you mentioned "Apophysis-070820-3", that's "Apophysis-YYMMDD-X", where YYMMDD is the date and X is some other indication of multiplicity, like 3rd from the random batch.

anyway, you've definitely noticed how slow apophysis is, and it's up to you to decide if it's worth letting the pc crunch however long for a nice final render.

[Nahee_Enterprises]

with regard to image quality, resolution is certainly of importance because no matter how well rendered the pixels are, if it isn't at or greater than the desired resolution (say, for a desktop wallpaper) then interpolation will be required, massively degrading the quality of the result.

When it comes to Raster images (bitmaps) that will probably always be true.  I am constantly amazed by those people that feel they can generate small resolution images and think they can enlarge it later when it comes time to print.

Too bad fractals do not lend themselves to being plotted easily into Vector images.

[lycium]

I am constantly amazed by those people that feel they can generate small resolution images and think they can enlarge it later when it comes time to print.

popular movies certainly aren't helping the situation at all. how many times have we seen movies where there's some picture on a superpowerful computer, and they just zoom in 1000x with no loss of quality? the movie "enemy of the state" took it to a whooole new level by spinning around a really blurred image in 3d, zooming right up to the contents of a bag and then matching it up with someorother image...

yesyes i know, it's hollywood, but i'm hardly the first to notice its dumbing effect on the masses:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070816-movies-dumbing-down-science-a-list-of-egregious-and-funny-offenses.html
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

Too bad fractals do not lend themselves to being plotted easily into Vector images.

bah, we just haven't invented the right type of printer yet

[Collin237]

Incorrect physics in movies is not a bad thing.

There was a time when movies were an expression of mythical themes. But today, after movies like "Premonition" and "Batman: Dark Knight", it can be said that being shockingly contrarian is just as entertaining -- or much more -- than driving a message gloriously home.

So in the spirit of hang-the-Hollywood, it would make a both fun and educational math and physics lesson to have students correct, in a movie's own vehicle of fabulosity, the mistakes it made. This would include not only actual science, but also fictional concepts germaine to science.