; Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 09:38:02 -0500 ; From: Jim Muth ; Subject: [Fractint] FOTD 25-02-03 (Candy Ring [5]) ; Id: <1.5.4.16.20030225094123.29bf7bc8@pop.mindspring.com> ; --------- ; FOTD -- February 25, 2003 (Rating 5) ; ; Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: ; ; Today's image is one of the grainiest of all time. The parent ; fractal is nothing more than a symmetrical pair of fragmented ; arcs, with little that appears to hold promise. The arcs do ; contain midgets however, and some of them are shaped most ; unusually. But for today's FOTD I have chosen a perfectly ; normal quadratic midget. ; ; I named the picture "Candy Ring". The ring of brightly colored ; spots surrounding the midget reminds me of a dish of candy that ; a child would love to dive into. The pattern around the midget ; is quite ephemeral, and quite dependent on the chosen palette of ; colors. Without a carefully chosen palette, the entire image ; deteriorates to a featureless expanse of fractal sand. ; ; The rating of 5 is nondescript. The image is neither good nor ; lacking. It simply exists, a mathematical abstraction that has ; never before been seen and never again will be seen. But this ; might not be totally true. If the universe is infinite, there ; are an infinity of fractalists sitting at an infinity of ; computers viewing this same image at this very moment. Of ; course, there is no such thing as this very moment throughout ; the universe, but that's relative, and therefore another story. ; ; I am getting letters asking the status of the FOTD-CD, and when ; it will be ready for distribution. The disk is basically ; finished. The material is gathered into one huge directory and ; ready to be copied onto a CD. The problem is that my artistic ; nature is exerting itself. I am not yet satisfied with the ; disk. I want it to be better -- as good as possible. ; ; I originally had planned to include on the disk the short ; stories I have written over the past 20 years or so. The ; stories are still ready to go onto the CD, but I have developed ; grave doubts about their worth. I would rather be known as a ; good fractalist than a marginal want-to-be writer. ; ; I also had originally planned to include on the disk the heated ; philosophical debates that I have had over the years with both ; believers and skeptics. These are also ready to go, but the ; more I think about this, the less I like the idea. The CD ; should be a fun thing, not a forum for fruitless and sometimes ; angry debate over things such as religion. ; ; Another hold-up is that I have been unable to locate a group of ; my earliest images, dating from way back in the late 1980's. ; They are not great, and their lack will have little impact on ; the CD as a whole, but they show how I got started on my ; insatiable quest for fractals. ; ; Another problem is the names of the GIF images, which are ; currently cryptic 8-letter DOS abbreviations of the longer full ; names of the images. The people who have tested the disk format ; have had trouble connecting the images with the corresponding ; discussions. (Would you know, while scanning a list of 30 GIF ; files, that the 'tmeandva.gif' image goes with the 'Theme and ; Variations' discussion?) ; ; I could solve this confusion by renaming the images so that the ; names correspond to the dates of their discussions, or by ; breaking down the current large monthly directories into 30 ; smaller daily ones, with one discussion and one image in each ; sub-directory. Either option would be a sizable task. Since ; Fractint is a DOS program, I want to keep the disk in DOS ; format, like the great disk that came with the second edition ; of "Fractal Creations". ; ; With all the other work that I have to do, it might be necessary ; to put the ongoing FOTD on hiatus while I wrap up the CD. ; Hopefully it will not be necessary. . . . but we'll see . . . ; ; On my machine, today's image requires almost 1/2 hour to render ; from the parameter file. Much time can be saved by downloading ; the completed image from: ; ; ; ; or from: ; ; ; ; The fractal weather was quite pleasant here at Fractal Central ; on Monday, with quite a bit of sun and a temperature of 44F 7C. ; Only the remaining snowpack prevented the duo from enjoying a ; romp in the yard. ; ; As for myself, I have a pile of graphic work to do, a leak to ; get patched, a basement to get dried, a fallen porch roof to get ; replaced, a FOTD-CD to wrap up, tomorrow's FOTD to find, and a ; pair of cats to keep happy. In addition, the central heat is ; acting up, probably because of the wet basement. All in all, it ; is just another normal day at Fractal Central, so until next ; time, take care, and when things are as bad as they could ; possibly be, barring the appearance of Murphy's law, they can ; only get better. ; ; ; Jim Muth ; jamth@mindspring.com ; jimmuth@aol.com ; ; ; START PARAMETER FILE================================ Candy_Ring { ; time=0:28:49.35--SF5 on a P200 reset=2002 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=recip passes=1 center-mag=+0.18015306714052880/+0.742625388281597\ 70/1.983779e+007/1/-140/-1.00973908755130903e-007 params=2/-1/-0.3/1/0/0 float=y maxiter=12000 inside=0 logmap=414 periodicity=10 colors=000QVOPVPNVQMVQLVRKVSIVSHVTGVUEWVFVUFUThhhF\ TSFTSFSRmK0FRQFRQGcPGQOGPOGPNGONGOMGNgGNLGMLHMKHLJ\ HLJHKIHKIHJHHUzHIGHIGKJJMKLOKNQLQwMzUMUXNWZOZ`O`bP\ bdPdfQgiRikRkmSmoTpqTrsUtwVxuUvsTuqTtoSsmSrlRqjQoh\ QnfPmdPlcOkaOj_NhYMgWMfVLeTLdRKcPJaNJ`MI_KIZIHYGHW\ HIUIKSJMQKOOLQMMSKNUIOWGPYEQ_CRaASc8Te6Ue4Vd1Ub1T`\ 0RZ0PY0NW0MU0KT0IR0GP0FO0HQ2JR3LT4MU5OV7QX8SY9T_AV\ `CXaDZcE_dFaeGcgIdhJfjKhkLjlNknOmoPoqQqrSrsTtuUvvV\ wwWvtUvqSvoQvlOvjMugKudIubGu_EuYDsWCqVCoUCmTCkSCiR\ CgQCePCcNBaMB_LBYKBXJBVIBTHBRGBPFBNDALCAJBAHAAF9AD\ 8AB7A96A85AA7DB9FCBHDDKEFMGGOHIRIKTJMVKOYMP_NRaOTd\ PVfQXhSYkT_mUaoVcrWetZexXfvVgtThsRhqPipOjnMjmKkkIl\ jGmhEmgDneBod9ob7pa5q_4qZ5rY6sX7tW8uV9vUAwTBxSBySC\ zTDzUEzVFzWFzXGzYHzZIz_Jz`JzaKzbLzcMzdNzeNzfOzgPzh\ QziRzjRzjTzjUziVzhWzgYzfZzf_zeazdbzcczbdzbfzagz`hz\ _hz`iz_izZjzYjzXjzWkzVkzU } frm:MandelbrotMix4 {; Jim Muth a=real(p1), b=imag(p1), d=real(p2), f=imag(p2), g=1/f, h=1/d, j=1/(f-b), z=(-a*b*g*h)^j, k=real(p3)+1, l=imag(p3)+100, c=fn1(pixel): z=k*((a*(z^b))+(d*(z^f)))+c, |z| < l } ; END PARAMETER FILE================================== ; ;