Andrew Que's Fractals

Andrew Que's Fractals

Fractal art, links and software

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Andrew Que's Fractal Software Manual

Sections:
   Requirements
   Fractal - 256 color fractal explorer
   Frac24 - 16.8 million color (24-bit color) explorer
   ZoomView
   Zoom2AVI

Requierments:

The fractal software is a DOS program and should run on any computer that (still) suports VESA.

Fractal

This program isn't updated anymore, but most of the keys decribed in the next section should work in the program.

Frac24

Fract24 is a Mandelbrot Fractal explorer. It runs in 24-bit color (i.e. 16.8 million colors).
This software requiers only suport of 32-bit VESA modes, which most video cards are more than capibal. However, new video cards may not suport this old standard.

NOTE: To run this program, you may need to first create a .PIF

Sections:

Keys	Keys for operating Frac24
Color palette	How the color palette works
Saveing .BMP	How to save a .BMP image of current frame
Creating zooms	How to create a zoom to the current frame
Creating a .PIF	How to create a .PIF file to run Frac24

Keys:

Arrow keys	Move zoom selection box
Enter	Zoom into selected aira of current frame
Backspace	Zoom back %25
A	Move left 1/4 screen
D	Move right 1/4 screen
W	Move up 1/4 screen
X	Move down 1/4 screen
+ and -	Incresse/decress selection size
* and /	Incresse/decress selection size while maintaining center
< and >	Incress/decress depth (Use 'Space' to redraw frame in order for this to take effect)
Space	Redraw current frame
S	Save current frame as .BMP file
Z	Create zoom animation from top to current position
M	Change to a diffrent video mode
C	Create a new color palette
1-8	Select color smoothness; 1=most corse, 8=smoothest (Use 'C' after this command to create new color palette)
P	Display job progress
Escape	Quit program

About the color palette:
The color palette is created at random. The smoothness of the color is selected by hitting 1 through 8; 4 is default. Typicaly, the lower into the fractal one zooms, the smoother the palette should be. However, it all depends on prefrence.

About saving:
Natraly, when exploring a fractals set, one can expect to want to save what is on the screen as an image file. This program can save screens as .BMP files.

Save options:

1	Image size X (width)
2	Image size Y (higth)
3	File prifix
Enter	Begin
Escape	Cancel save

    The image size higth and width can be between 2 to 16,384. The file prifix is the name of the output file appended before the file number; default is "Frac". For example, the prifix "Frac" would first create "Frac0.bmp". The second image would be "Frac1.bmp". The number will increment until the a free filename is found. This way, files never get overwritten.
   The color palette used for saving is that of the current frame.
   When settings are saticfactory, "Enter" will start the saving process. Now-- the magic: save jobs are processed in the background so the user can continue to explore. One can queue sevral jobs and alow them to process while still exploring. 'P' can be used to check on the status of jobs currently pending. When quiting, all jobs queued will first be finished. Escape aborts unfinished jobs.

Creating zooms:
To create a fractal zoom animation file, find an aira of the fractal to zoom into. Hit 'Z' to begin zoom creation. A zoom animation file (.ANI) will zoom from the top level of the fractal to the current frame.

NOTE: Zoom files can take a long time to create, from minutes to sevral hours.
ALSO: Zoom files may consume sevral hundrad megabytes of space.

Zoom options:

1	Image size X (width)
2	Image size Y (higth)
3	Gradient
4	File prifix
5	Max loops
Enter	Begin zoom
Escape	Cancel zoom

    The image size higth and width can be any value from 2 to 16,384. Keep in mind, the higher the resolusion, the long each frame of the zoom will take.
   Gradient refers to how many pixels will be traveled each frame; default 4.0-- meaning 4 pixel of motion per frame. This directly equates to how fast the zoom apears to move.
   Max loops refers to the color depth. Typicaly, this value does not need to change and reflects the current color depth of the current frame. Remember, the high the color depth, the long it takes to process airas of black.
   File prefix is the same as with saveing .BMP files-- it is the name apended a file number-- the file number being the first free name found.
   To begin the zoom creation, hit 'Enter'. Currently, there is no job suport for zooms, so the zoom is done start to finish after starting. Progress is displayed in terms of frame number and frame progress precent. There is no way to determin the number of frame nesscary to compleat a zoom, so there is no indication of overall progress.
   Once an animation file is created, it can then be converted into an .AVI file with Zoom2AVI or be viewed with ZoomView. The .ANI file format is proprietary and not supported by anything but these two software items.

Creating a .PIF file
Frac24 is a DOS program and must run as a full screen application to function correctly. There are two ways of doing this: one, running Frac24 for a full screen DOS prompt, or by creating a .PIF file.
To create a .PIF file to run Frac24, right click on Frac24.exe and goto properties. Under the "Screen" tab is a selection for full-screen. Select full-screen and hit okay. This will create Frac24.pif. Now, Frac24 should always come up as a full screen application and function correctly.