Richard wrote:
Which of these features do you use on a regular basis?
- orbit draw modes (point, circle, etc.)
I don't use these often, BUT, they are an unparallelled teaching tool for showing someone who knows nothing of fractals or complex numbers how Fractint generates images. When I'm fiddling with Fractint at work and someone comes by and asks 'What's that?', if they show any interest after I tell them its a "fractal" and generated by math, they get the orbits window, used with the view window option so they see both the orbits and the image. Getting a visual idea of what it means for z to go to infinity (i.e. off-screen) or to say bounded conveys an understanding otherwise only gained by lots more math than a casual questioner is going to tolerate. To me, the orbit drawing modes are very important because of that teaching aspect. I'd hate to see them not make it into the future with Fractint.
- orbit sound options
Every bit of fractal sound I've ever heard has been a painful as the sound of a truck full of pigs crashing into a truck full of empty tin cans.
- L-system fractal type
Seldom use this.
- IFS 2D/IFS 3D fractal type
Seldom use.
- cellular automata fractal type
Haven't used it in years and think it unlikely I ever will again.
- random dot stereogram feature
Seldom use, but can be interesting to show off to non-fractalers who wanter by.
- red/blue glasses stereo rendering feature
Haven't used it in ages. Damn, now I'm going to have to try it out again. BTW, apropos nothing fractal, but marvellous none the less and fractal types generally love the marvellous, there are some red/green 3D images of phosphatized fossil arthropod larvae from 500,000,000 years ago, preserved in amazing detail and fully 3 dimensional (that is, unsquished) at: http://www.core-orsten-research.de/22stereo.html
- diffusion limited aggregation fractal type
Can't recall having used to the point of having no idea what this is/does.
- read fractal type, etc., parameters from GIF and you don't have a corresponding PAR for the GIF
Useful from time to time.
- release=/saverelease= in PAR sets, i.e. do you depend on old behavior that had bugs or was different for some other reason
I don't use this.
- olddemcolors= in PAR sets
Don't know what this is.
- logmap=old in PAR sets
Don't know what this is. Damn, now I'll have to try it.
- raytracing file output; if so, what raytracer?
I think I used it in the distant past with POVRay, but doubt I'd be using it again. Thanks for your efforts to give Fractint a future, Richard. Mike