FOTD -- February 14, 2005 (Rating 9) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Today's fractal image is so different, so striking, that little can be said about it. The image speaks for itself. I am not going to speculate about where the voice comes from, but when the image is viewed, the fractal voice will be heard. To find the image, I made a slight change in the parent fractal that I have been using for about a week. I increased the portion of Z^(-1.26) from 5 to 9, a change that causes the whole fractal to shrink while keeping most of its overall features intact. I then searched along the southeast shoreline of the large circular bay. This bay is unusual in that it has no obvious buds along its shoreline, but as today's image shows, it does have midgets. When I found today's scene, I tried the usual tricks on it. I tried all the 'outside' options and found the 'tdis' option works best. Then I evaporated the image and found that none of the 'inside' options makes as good an image as the unevaporated outside=tdis version, though the 'bof60' option works best. Finally, I set the escape radius to 500,000,000, which results in a half-evaporated image. I kept the outside parts set to 'tdis', the inside parts set to 'bof60', and the result was the skeletal framework of today's image. The final step was finding a color palette that brings out the best in an image that is only half there. Though Fractint has only 256-color capability, it gives maximum versatility to those limited colors, and after a half hour or so I had worked up the palette that makes today's image one of the few FOTD's that can honestly be said to rate a 9. When it came time to name the image, I studied it a few minutes, then saw a collection of colorful broken shells scattered on a fractal beach. I named the image "Shattered Shells", the name it will carry for all time. The render time of 7-1/2 minutes is quite reasonable for one of the best FOTD fractal images. But rendering may be avoided entirely by downloading the finished image from the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> The enlightening and informative, (at least IMO), philosophy continues in the philofractal version of today's FOTD discussion. The weather on Sunday was partly cloudy with a high temperature of 46F 8C. The fractal cats, who most certainly eat food other than tuna, spent about 2 hours lurking in the holly thicket, looking for excitement than never happened. When they came inside, a small treat of tuna eased their disappointment. (The tuna is only a special treat. The dynamic duo's main diet is the variety of food that all well-fed cats eat.) But today is starting cold and rainy. I see a bad day coming up for the duo. For me, the commercial work is average, but there is that next installment of philosophy to start work on. The next FOTD will appear in 24 hours; the next philosophy will take several days longer. Until tomorrow, same time same place, take care, and be ready for anything. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Shattered_Shells { ; time=0:07:24.73--SF5 on a P200 reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=recip passes=1 center-mag=+1.38892447657072300/-0.704796288496714\ 20/20019.17/1/125/-4.43365483215885092e-011 float=y params=9/-1.26/0.5/-12.6/0/500000000 maxiter=1000 inside=bof60 outside=tdis periodicity=10 colors=000WqoWrpmb7U`2Wa3Xb3Yb4_c4`d4ad5ce5df5ef6f\ g6hh7ih7ji7lj8mj8nk8ol9ql9rmAsnAunAvoBwpBxpBoiFgcI\ _XLRROJKRBEUDDSFCQHBOIAMK9KM8IN7HP6FR5DS4BU39W27X1\ 6XFHRSROd`MqjOolPmm000UiiXghZefacdcacf_ahY_kWZmUXp\ SVrQUnP`kOfhNliMmjLmjKmkKmkJnlInlInmHnmGonGonFooEo\ oEomFolGojHoiIohJofKoeLodMobNoaOo`PoZQoYRoXSoVToUU\ oTUofHUs58kFGcPNWZVOhaSkbVncYqd`tecwffyggwfhvfiuej\ teksdlrdmqcnpcnoconbpmbqlarkasj`ti`uh_vg_vf_se`qe`\ od`mdakcaicagbaebbcbb`abZacX`cV`cT_cR_dPZdNZdLZdM_\ eM_fM_fM_gN_hN_hN_iN_jN_jO_kO_kO_lO_mO_mP_nP_oP_oP\ _pP_pOaqNbqMcqMdrLerKgrKhrJisIjsIksHlsGntFotFptEqt\ DruDsuCuuBvuBwvAxv9yv9uv8sp8oj8ld8j_8hU8gO8fJAeLCe\ MEeNGePIfQKgRMhTOiUQiVSiXUiYWiZXi`Zia`hbahdcheehfg\ hghhijgjlgkmgmngnpgoqgpofomfnlfmkflifkhfjffidficfh\ afg`ffZfeXfdWfcUfcSfbRfaPf`Nf_MfZKfYJfYIeZIdZIcZIb\ ZIa_I`_XecXgeXigXkiWmkWom } 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=========================================