T H E F R A C T A L G R A F I C S O N - D I S K M A N U A L Copyright, 1991 by Dick Oliver Cedar Software, Morrisville, VT 05661-9605 (802) 888-5275 Version 2.02, December, 1991 Compatibility: Required: * IBM-PC, XT, AT, PS/2, or compatible * DOS version 2.1 or higher * Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, or Super-VGA graphics adapter * Minimum of 384K of memory Optional: * Microsoft compatible mouse For file compatibility, this product uses the PCX and GX Graphics toolkits, Copyright 1989 by Genus Microprogramming, Inc. Other products mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies. CONTENTS -------- I. What is Fractal Grafics? II. What Can I Do With It? III. Getting Started IV. The Fractal Grafics Guidebook V. Installation VI. Running the Program VII. Start-up Files VIII. The Juliman Program IX. Registration I. WHAT IS FRACTAL GRAFICS? --------------------------- Fractal Grafics is a drawing program and an educational tool. As with any drawing program, you use the mouse and keyboard to create pictures on the screen from dots and lines, with full control over coloring and shading. The images you design are limited only by your artistic skill and imagination. Fractal Grafics gives you a new, powerful drawing tool called a "fractal template". You use the template to create complex shapes with rich detail, and assemble these shapes into eye-catching, colorful images. With practice, you will be able to make pictures more realistic than anything you've ever created on a computer (or, more than likely, on paper). Many of the most difficult things to draw with other programs (like plants, landscapes, and other flowing natural forms) can be drawn in great detail in seconds with a single "imprint" of a fractal template. But realism is only half the story. Even before you build your drawing skills enough to mimic the "real" world, you'll embark on a breathtaking journey into the fantastic world of fractal geometry. The easiest shapes to create are spiraling vortexes, other-worldly plants, enchanting galaxies of color, and dazzling portraits of infinity. Fractal Grafics is designed to be intuitive and easy to use for anyone: you don't need to know any mathematics, or be any good at art--though you'll find plenty of chances to use both skills if you have them! The mission of Fractal Grafics is to let YOU get creative with the geometry that has revitalized both science and art, from the prediction of earthquakes to state-of-the-art motion picture special effects. II. WHAT CAN I DO WITH IT? -------------------------- Fractals are beautiful and fascinating, and you're sure to get a great deal of entertainment from using Fractal Grafics. You can also do some very practical things with it: --You will learn through hands-on exploration about fractal geometry and "chaos" theory, which are revolutionizing many fields of science. Here are just a few examples: * See with your own eyes why traditional linear systems go belly up when applied to most natural phenomena. * "Grow" plants on the screen by designing your own geometric genetic codes, and learn to reconstruct the genetics of real plants. * Learn to create visual graphs and models of non-linear dynamical data. --You can also create spectacular artwork and graphics designs. A sampling of your new artistic repertoire: * Sculpt a fractal mimicry of any existing (or imagined) image, and add coloring and shading highlights. All shapes can be re-sized without loss of textural detail. * Then apply some of these effects: Irregular or spiraling zooms, complex "cracks" and fragmentation, spray, blur, winding tendrils, fuzz, or anything you can imagine (and lots you can't)! * Tile any shape with copies of itself for dizzying "off to infinity" effects. * Exchange images with other "draw", "paint", and desktop publishing programs via built-in compatibility with the PCX file format. III. GETTING STARTED -------------------- What should I do to get How long going with Fractal Grafics? will it take? 1. Install the program, and get 5 to 15 minutes it running. (The following two sections tell you how.) 2. Follow the on-line help 1 to 2 hours topics 0 through 9 to get familiar with the program. (Just run the program, press the letter H and follow the instructions that appear.) 3. Create some fractals! At least an hour Play, explore, and practice. 4. Follow the rest of the 1 to 2 hours on-line help topics to learn all the features of the program. 5. Practice some more. Try to At least an hour imagine a shape and see if you can create it on the screen. If you wish to continue using the program at this point, you are asked register your use with the author. You will be sent a Guidebook which picks up where the on-line tutorial leaves off. IV. THE FRACTAL GRAFICS GUIDEBOOK --------------------------------- When you register, you'll get a guided tour of the fractal universe, with six educational sections and more than 150 hands-on examples. The following topics are covered: 1. ART You'll master the use of fractal templates to create breathtaking images. Learn how to produce any design you can imagine, and a world of shapes beyond imagination. 2. SCIENCE Fractals have revolutionized almost every branch of science. By modelling the natural world, you will discover the deep simplicity behind Nature's complex face. You'll also learn to graph fractal curves to fit actual data. 3. MATH Step into infinity and learn how fractals work. If you want to see the equations and algorithms, they're all here. If you don't, everything is explained visually and intuitively. 4. PHILOSOPHY You'll discover the startling revelations of "non-linear" thinking, and the intimate connections between fractals and Chaos theory. Is the universe a fractal? Are YOU? 5. HISTORY You'll retrace the evolution of a new geometry, and find out how "pathological" shapes which appalled their inventors have revitalized science, mathematics, and art. 6. LITERATURE You'll also get a complete bibliography of fractal books, articles, software, and videos. There's also advice on how to use Fractal Grafics as a companion to several books. And all the examples used in the Guidebook are indexed in the back so you can browse through them on disk and then read about the ones that intrigue you the most. V. INSTALLATION --------------- Follow these steps before you run Fractal Grafics for the first time: 1. Back up the Fractal Grafics disk(s). Use the back up copy from now on, and put the original in a safe place. If you're not sure how to back up a disk, here's how: --Insert a blank floppy disk in drive A. --Type FORMAT A: at the DOS prompt, and press Enter. If you're sure you've inserted a blank disk, tell DOS by pressing Enter again. --When the formatting is done, take out the blank and insert the Fractal Grafics disk --Type DISKCOPY A: A: and press Enter --Follow the computer's instructions for inserting disks during the copy --Label the copy, and stash the original 2. Insert the back-up copy of the Fractal Grafics disk in drive A, type A: (the letter A and a colon), and press the Enter key. (The DOS prompt should now say A>) If, for some reason, you can't use drive A, just type the letter of the drive you will be using, followed by a colon, and press Enter. (Example: To use drive B, type B:). If you want to copy the disk to a drive other than A (for example, drive B), use this command: COPY A:*.* B: NOTE: A "double-density" 3.5 inch disk holds twice as much as a "double density" 5.25 inch disk. Therefore, you can not backup a 3.5" disk to a 5.25" disk, unless the 5.25" disk is "high density". You CAN copy two 5.25" disks onto one 3.5" disk if you want, though. Just use the XCOPY command above twice. If this all sounds confusing, just use one disk drive and the DISKCOPY command! 3. If you want TO INSTALL FRACTAL GRAFICS TO YOUR HARD DISK, simply copy all the files to a subdirectory on the hard disk, like this: C: MD \FRACTAL COPY A:*.* C:\FRACTAL See the next page for instructions on starting the program. VI. RUNNING THE PROGRAM ----------------------- Once you've installed Fractal Grafics (see the previous page for installation instructions), you can run it by entering FG from the directory where the program resides. For example: --To run from a floppy disk, type this (pressing Enter after each line): A: FG --To run from a directory on your hard drive (see previous page for instructions on copying Fractal Grafics to a hard drive): (drive letter): (drive letter) is probably C. CD \(directory name) (directory name) could be FRACTAL. FG NOTE FOR MOUSE USERS: If you wish to use your Microsoft-compatible mouse with Fractal Grafics, you must be sure to install your mouse driver before running the program. In many cases, the driver is installed automatically when you start the computer, so you may not need to take any additional steps. See your mouse manual for more instructions. The next page explains some advanced tricks for running Fractal Grafics. You don't need to read it until you've used the program for a while. VII. STARTUP FILES ------------------- Whenever you run Fractal Grafics, it automatically loads a picture file named STARTUP.PCX and a template file named STARTUP.FRT if they exist in the current directory. You can save any picture and/or template under the name STARTUP and they will come up every time you start the program. When you use a monochrome graphics mode such as /C (CGA 2-color hi-res), /H (Hercules), or /M (VGA monochrome 640x480 resolution), the program automatically loads the start-up files named STARTBW.FRT and STARTBW.PCX instead of the ones named STARTUP. You can specify another start-up file name on the command line. For example, to start Fractal Grafics in 320 by 200 mode and bring up picture and template files named MYSTART, enter: FG MYSTART /L Note that you can bring back the startup picture by picking Restore from the menu as soon as the program begins. To start up without loading any files, either delete the files named STARTUP and STARTBW or specify a non-existent name (example: FG NOFILE). The picture will come up blank and a simple triangular template will be centered on the screen. VIII. THE JULIMAN PROGRAM ----------------------- The JULIMAN.EXE file on this disk is a simple program to generate pictures of the Mandelbrot Set and Julia Sets. These are famous mathematical fractals which are drawn by multiplying points on the "complex plane" by themselves or each other over and over again. Pictures of these sets take quite a while to produce (up to several hours per picture on an "AT" class computer). The "Escape-Time Algorithm" used to draw these sets is explained in the Guidebook (which you get when you register), with illustrations and commented pseudo-code. To use the Juliman program, install Fractal Grafics and type JULIMAN at the DOS prompt instead of FG. If you have VGA graphics, you may want to force the program to run in the lower EGA resolution mode by typing JULIMAN /E. (Images take less time to generate in the lower resolution.) JULIMAN will ask for several numbers. If you're not familiar with x,y coordinates and that sort of thing, just keep pressing Enter to use the default values. To get you started, here are a few interesting parameters: Mandelbrot Set: From x = y = To x = y = -------------------------------------------- -0.95 -0.32 -0.85 -0.22 -0.2 1.02 -0.13 1.07 -0.7 0.5 -0.4 0.7 -1.78 0 -1.76 0.013 Julia Sets for the points: x = y = ------------------------ 0.11031 -0.67037 0.27334 0.00742 -1.25 0 0 1 -0.39054 -0.58679 All Julia sets are from (x = -1.5, y = -1.5) to (x = 1.5, y = 1.5). You can "zoom in" by using numbers in between, for example: (x = -1, y = -1) to (x = -0.25, y = 0.25) zooms into the top left corner. In most cases, 30 is a good number of iterations. More iterations will show greater detail, less will go faster. Control over colors and palettes is very limited in Juliman, but the images are saved as PCX files, so you can load them into Fractal Grafics (or another graphics program) to adjust the colors as you wish. IX. REGISTRATION ----------------- This is an unregistered "shareware" copy of Fractal Grafics. You are encouraged to copy and distribute this program freely, but it is NOT in the public domain. If you continue to use the software in any way, you must "register" (i.e. buy) it by sending $39 to Dick Oliver at: Cedar Software Box 5140-R1 Morrisville, VT 05661-9605 When you register, you will receive the most recent version of the program, a 160-page printed Manual and Guidebook, and over 150 fractal template files used as examples in the Guidebook. The Guidebook includes in-depth sections on fractal art, science, philosophy, math, history, and literature. You will also receive a Quick Reference sheet, lifetime free product support, a free copy of FRACTINT (which makes many types of abstract fractals, including the Mandelbrot and Julia sets, MUCH faster than Juliman), and discounts on all future Cedar Software products. The shareware arrangement allows free information exchange while enabling authors to focus on development and support of quality software without huge advertising budgets, and resulting high prices. The success of shareware, and the freedom and benefits it offers all of us, depend on the honesty and integrity of users, distributors, and authors alike. Thank you for supporting the shareware concept. An order form/invoice is provided on next page for your convenience. Phone orders are also accepted at (802) 888-5275, although you may need to leave a message on an answering machine. Be ready with your Visa or MasterCard number and expiration date, name, address, and phone number. School purchase orders are also welcome. Thanks for trying Fractal Grafics. We hope to hear from you soon! INVOICE/ORDER FORM FOR FRACTAL GRAFICS COMPUTER SOFTWARE Remit to: From: ________________________________ Cedar Software Box 5140-R1 ________________________________ Morrisville, VT 05661 USA ________________________________ Voice: (802) 888-5275 FAX: (802) 586-9970 ________________________________ Check preferred disk size: ___ 5.25" disks ___ 3.5" disks ___ HD Qty Item Price Each Total ___ Fractal Grafics Software (Single User) $39 ______ Includes 160-page illustrated Guidebook, 200+ example files, free FRACTINT software, Quick Reference sheet, and lifetime support. ___ Fractal Grafics Unlimited Site License $139 ______ Designed and priced for schools, allows any number of users at one location or LAN. ___ Additional Documentation with Site License each $8 ______ ___ Full C Source Code & Programmer's Tutorial add $39 ______ Includes fast integer math kernal compatible with both Fractal Grafics and FRACTINT, an 8-page illustrated tutorial and several example programs in Microsoft C to get you started. SPECIFY: ___ Microsoft C/QuickC ___ Genus GX Graphics ___ Workshops/Seminars/Custom Programming: Call us! ______ Vermont residents add 5% sales tax ______ Shipping within North America, add $5. Overseas, $10 ______ TOTAL: ______ If ordering by Visa or MasterCard, please fill in: Card no.: __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Exp. Date: ___________ Signature: _____________________________