3-D Mandelbrot 3.0 CONTENTS : Files Features Introduction i. Version notes. 1. Starting the program 2. Demo 3. Reference Manual A. Data Entry Window commands B. Files C. Type D. C Mode E. V Mode F. I Data G. Choose Color H. Slides I. Drawing a. zooming in J. Hot keys K. Animating an image 4. Command Line Parameters. 5. Common problems Appendix Files title - the title. mandel_w.exe - the 3DMAND3 program (revision W). mandel_v.exe - A short revision of mandel_w.exe which can run in the background in Microsoft Windows 3. (not included) mandel_v.pif - A Windows 3 PIF for mandel_v. (not included) mandel_v.ico - icon for mandel_v. (not included) mandel_w.cfg - the 3DMAND3 configuration file. 3DMAND3.txt - this file. c.bat - a batch file to run the mandel_w.exe program. m.bat - a batch file to run the mandel_w.exe program in nographic mode. c2.bat - a batch file to run the mandel_v.exe program. (not included) m2.bat - a batch file to run the mandel_v.exe program in nographic mode. (not included) *.3dv - demo images. (not included) movie4.3ds - 111 slide long demo movie. (not included) movies.3ds - 3 slide long shareware demo movie. (not included) runme.bat - a batch file to run the demo movie. (not included) Features -20 digit extended real calculations. -80*87 processor supported. -Integer Math option. -can calculate up to 2147483647 iterations. -Potential calculating. -A slide-projector. -3 dimensional perspective zoom in/out and rotation. -non-graphic option : for multi-tasking computers. -estimated finish time calculation -sectional view -project up/downward -movie making routines. -combine pictures and movies together -sphere projection -reuse iteration data. -usage of key frame sets to make subsets. Introduction 3DMAND makes iteration data files and plot&animates 3-dimensional mandelbrot images. The program uses pull down menus. Mandelbrot images can be infinitely complex. That is the reason why this program supports more then 65000 iterations. 3DMAND usually calculates the iterations while drawing the 3d image. You can also calculate using the non-graphic option. This could be useful when you are using a multi-tasking computer. You can also save unfinished drawings and continue later. (If you want to save the iteration data for later use, a hard drive is recommended.) You can also preview a new drawing in order to get an idea of what the result would be like. By using potential calculating, you can generate beautiful images that resemble ridges and hillsides. After calculating the image, you might want to zoom into a certain part of the mandelbrot set displayed. You can do this simply by moving the zoom-window and change the size and location until the image you want to zoom into is inside the zoom-window. 3DMAND can also make a movie by setting the beginning image and the ending image. The movie routine will make images connecting the two images. After calculating a series of 3-d images, you can load them into the slide-projector and view them in seconds. You can also do this from a batch file using command line options. Also, you can combine two images together, setting one as the background and the other as the foreground. You can also combine movies together. Also, you can turn on the sphere mode which plots mandelbrot/julia images into a sphere. Also, you can make a shadowed image by setting the light angle. This will give you realistic landscape like images. Over all, the 3DMAND program lets you generate complex, 256 color 3 dimensional mandelbrot or Julia images using just zoom-windows and easy to use pull down menus. i. mandel_n.exe - An early EGA version of the program. mandel_u.exe - 3DMAND version 1.0. A VGA version of mandel_n.exe. mandel_v.exe - 3DMAND version 2.0. Added movie projecting routines. mandel_w.exe - Due to a catastrophic power out while running a disk optimizing program, a large part of the source code was lost. So I had to re-program the complex movie making features, many machine language codes and sphere mode generating routines which all took a lot of time. 1. Starting the program A. Installing from floppy disks a. Insert disk A into the disk drive. b. when installing from a 3.5 inch drive, type install 3 example) To install from drive a 3 inch drive A to hard drive C, type install 3 a: c: when installing from a 5.25 inch drive, type install 5 c. follow the directions displayed d. make sure you have at least 572K of free conventional memory to run mandel_w.exe. Mandel_w.exe has been tested under Dos 5.0. e. make sure you have at least 519K of free conventional memory to run mandel_v.exe. mandel_v.exe has many functions disabled. B. To view the slide-show.. just type runmovie movie4.3ds (To stop the sliderun press the ESC key. If you have the SHAREWARE version, type runmovie movies.3ds ) C. To run mandel_v.exe under windows. If you can run Windows 3 in enhanced mode, you can run 3DMAND 3 in the background while running windows by running 3DMAND 3 in text mode. Because most users would run out of memory running mandel_w.exe in the background, mandel_v.exe is included which has many functions disabled to decrease its size. a. To make a 3dmand 3 icon, run Windows 3 and from the program manager, pull down the file menu and then select 'New..'. b. Select 'New program item' and type in the description and then for the command parameters type :\3DMAND3\mandel_v.pif c. Finally use ':\3DMAND3\mandel_v.ico' as the icon. d. You can't use the mouse to pull down the menus, etc when 3dmand3 is running under windows because this is a ms-dos program running in window mode. 2. Demo This demo will go through the 3DMAND 3 program demonstrating many of the functions. Please make sure that there is at least 1 Meg free in the drive to run the demo. A. Making your first image 1) To make sure the current configurations are default, type copy default.cfg mandel_w.cfg run the 3DMAND3 program by typing c.bat You'll see the title message. To continue, press (it might take a few seconds to load the program) 2) let's pull down the drawing menu and draw a picture using the default settings. Alt-D (make sure 'Current Settings' is highlighted) Start drawing your first image by pressing You'll see the current iteration, average iteration and X Y coordinates blinking on and off at the upper left part of the screen. You'll also see the estimated finish time at the bottom part of the screen. (On an AT, it should take about 8 minutes. On a 386 it should take about 2 minutes. Initially, it would predict the estimated finish time to be longer than it really is.) (You'd see that the drawing is a little coarse. This is because the double density mode is turned off. If you choose double density, you'll get a much more smoother image even though it would take longer to draw it.) After the drawing is finished and saved, you'll see the 'animating' message on the upper left part of the screen. To erase the 'animating' message, press Let's continue animating this image. Press c a To change the direction of the palette animation, press - or + To step animate the palette, press .. To continuously animate the image, press c To select alternate palette animation, press t To end, press At this point, you'll see information related to the image. To To get to the main menu, press If you have a fast vga adaptor, you might be able to scroll the palette in fastmode. If you do, press Alt-C (highlight 'Fast Animate') (make sure this toggles 'Fast Animate' on.) (this returns you to the main data entry screen) 3) Let's draw a mandelbrot mountain using the previously calculated rawfile. Highlight 'Maxiter' and change it to a positive value 100 Change the image filename to 'noname2.3dv' x 5 'noname2.3dv' set the rawfile name to 'noname1.raw' Alt-F x 2 'noname1.raw' Let's begin drawing the image. Alt-D You are now drawing a new image called 'noname2.3dv' using the iteration data file 'noname1.raw' made while making 'noname1.3dv'. The program won't spend any time calculating the iterations so it should be faster. After the drawing is finished, press twice to return to the main menu. x2 Before doing anything further, Let's change the rawfile name to the default value which is blank. (When the rawfile name is set to blank, the program will automatically use the default rawfile name which is the current filename + '.raw'.) To change the rawfile name, press Alt-F x 2 x 12 4) Let's try to make a better looking mandelbrot mountain. To select potential mode, press Alt-V And then select 'Conventionalmode' by pressing x3 and then change the image file name by pressing 'noname3.3dv' To start drawing the image, press Alt-D 5) Let's draw another image with a different 3d perspective, get back to the main menu and then press Alt-I (Highlight 'Change 3d Perspectiv') At this point, you'll see a 3d box on the screen. This is the 3d cube you'll use to change the 3d perspective. Let's rotate the image 50 degrees. Press x 25 Also, change the PHI by pressing x 35 Pan the image up by pressing 'I' (capital I only) x 7 To make the changes current, press Now, change the filename to 'noname4.3dv' Pgdn 'noname4.3dv' Let's use the old iteration data since the coordinates are the same. Set the rawfile name to 'noname3.raw' Alt-F x 2 'noname3.raw' To start drawing 'noname4.3dv' press Alt-D 6) Now, Let's make a movie connecting images noname3.3dv and noname4.3dv. Change the name of the slidefile list by pressing Alt-s (highlight 'Name of New Slidefil') 'demo.3ds' From the main menu, press Alt-D (Highlight 'Makemovie-r') '10' 'demo0' '3dv' 'noname3.3dv' 'noname4.3dv' 'noname3.raw' The screen will go blank and the program will start making 10 blank images. To see the names of these blank images, press Alt-2 You will see 10 image names listed on the slidefile editing screen. To get back to the main entry screen, press Alt-1 Let's save this slide file by pressing (highlight 'Save Slidefile') Let's finish the blank images in the slidefile by typing Alt-s (highlight 'Run Slidefile') The program will now make 10 images connecting the two images specified. (This may take up to 120 minutes on an AT) To run this slidefile, press Alt-s (highlight 'C Run Slidefile') 7) press Alt-X to exit the program. 3. Reference Manual - This reference manual is not meant to be read sequentially. A. Data Entry Window commands - This is the first window you see when you get into the program and stays in the background. You can always get back to this window by pressing the key a few times. a. Min X Cor This is the x (real) coordinate of the lower left part of the set. b. Min Y Cor This is the y (imaginary) coordinate of the lower left part of the set. c. Size This is the length of the side of the square image of the mandelbrot set. d. Max Iter This is the maximum number of iterations. For many images, 1000 iterations is appropriate. You can increase this value to more than 100000 iterations. For most images, 60000 iterations is sufficient. Increasing the number of maximum iterations will give you more detail but also increase the time needed to finish the image. If you set this to a negative value, negative scaling will be selected and the 'mandelbrot lake' will be plotted below the ground instead of eerily floating above. The negative sign is only a switch to tell 3DMAND that you want negative scaling and has no other effect. e. Zoom This sets the zoom value. If you decrease this value, it will have the effect of zooming out from the center. If you increase this value, it will have the effect of zooming into the center of the image. f. No. of Regions Select this to specify the number of regions displayed as one color. If you decrease this value, you will increase the color "band width", or to put it another way, have larger areas of the same color. This value must be less than or equal to the number of colors. g. No. of colors This is the maximum number of colors. The optimum value is 150 because you want to reserve space for drawing shaded images. The maximum value is 249. (The other colors are used for drawing the background, the mandelbrot lake and write-over colors.) h. Sectional View Set this value to either a "T" or a "F". If you select "F" the image will be composed only of surface dots. If you press "T" the surface fill will be selected for a more complete image. Just drawing the dots would decrease the time it takes to draw the image. The default is "T". i. Clockwise Angle Rotates the X Real and Y Imag coordinates used to generate the image. if you set this to 10, it will have the affect of rotating the image clockwise by 10 degrees. j. Image Filename This is the filename of the image. Set it to a new filename everytime you draw a new image. The filename should have a ".3d*" extension. Notice that if you set the image filename to a pre- existing image, 3DMAND will display that image instead of writing over it. The first image file should have a ".3DV" extension added to the main filename. The iteration data file created will have a ".RAW" extension. Image files contain the screen dump and all the parameters used to generate the image which should be less than 64K. The iteration data file can get pretty long depending on the X,Y resolution. You can turn off the iteration data file generation if necessary. If you attempt to generate a second image using the old iteration data file, change the filename extension to something other than ".3dv" (for instance ".3d2", ".3d3"...) while using the same main filename and draw the image again. A second image will be made using the old iteration data. B. Files - To select this menu, press Alt-F. Using this menu, you can select an image from a directory, add images to the slidelist and make backups. a. Path Select this to change the path in which the data files are located. If you don't specify otherwise, the default directory is selected. b. Mask for directory This is normally '*.3D*'. c. Directory. When you select this, a window appears from which you can select a specific file. Only files with the right mask will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight bar to where you want and then press the key when you have selected the right file. You can leave without selecting a file by pressing the key. If you select a file, the 'File name' in the data entry window will be changed. This won't immediately load the other parameters. The other parameters will get loaded when you actually display the image from the 'drawing' menu. (Finished drawing files are colored white. Unfinished drawing files are colored light magenta. Slidefile lists are colored light red. All other files are colored black.) Up to 120 files can be displayed at once. d. Add To Slidefile When you select this, a window appears from which you can select many image files into the Slidefile. Only files with the right mask will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight bar to where you want and then press the key when you have selected the right file. You can leave this screen by pressing the key. If you want to see the slidefile list, get back to the data entry screen and then press Alt-2. Press Alt-1 in order to get back to the data entry screen. When you select images and then view the slidefile list, you will see the filename added to the end of the slidefile. The slidefile is listed top to bottom and then right to left starting from the upper left part of the screen. In all, it can store up to 114 filenames. In order to get help on editing the slidefile list, press F1 to see the editing commands. You can also directly change the contents of the slidefile list by typing the filename in after moving the curser to the right place in the slidefile list. e. Set Rawfile Name Use this to set the rawfile name to something other than the main image filename +'.RAW'. You must leave this blank if you want to use the default rawfile name. If you set this to something other than blank, 3DMAND will assume that this is the filename of the rawfile to be used. f. Make Backup You can make multiple backups using this function. In order to make a backup of a file, highlight it and then press enter. The file will be copied to a '.BAK' extension. g. Delete File You can delete multiple files when you select this option. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight bar to where you want and then press the key when you have selected the right file. You can leave without deleting a file by pressing the key. h. Delete Current This will delete the current image file. i. Copy Current This will copy the current image file. j. Copy List Copy images that appear when running the current slidefile list to a specified path. C. C Mode - Choose this to set the constant modes. Constant modes don't get saved to or loaded from the image file and are only saved into the mandel_w.cfg configuration file. So, they stay constant unless you change them manually. Select this by pressing Alt-C. a. FastMode If you don't select the fast mode, calculating the iterations will take about 2 times longer even though you'll have pretty much the same image. If you select the fast mode, the program will skip 2x2 pixel boxes which are surrounded by a single color. If you turn off the FastMode, the program will calculate as many pixels as set by the X,Y resolution. b. Animate Unfinished D Select 'Animate Unfinished Drawing' in order animate the drawing while generating it. The program will scroll the palette while generating the image. c. Rawfile Select this if you want to use or make rawfiles. If you don't select this option, the program will not read from or write to rawfiles. d. PreviewMode Select this to see a preview of the image before drawing the actual image. e. Double density Turn on this option if your plotting becomes too sparse. When your plotting becomes too sparse, you can either increase the X and Y resolution or select Double density. If you increase X and Y resolution, it will also increase the iteration calculating time but selecting Double density will only increase the image drawing time. f. sounds enable or disable the sound g. Animate Run Slidefile This will animate the palette as you run the slidefile. h. Fast Run Slidefile Turn this on in order to increase the speed of the slidefile run animation. i. Run Palindromically This will run the slidefile in the opposite direction after each run. j. Fast Animate Turn this on in order to increase the speed of the palette animation. If you see flickers when 3DMAND animates the palette, turn 'Fast Animate' off. k. Part Animate When you select this, the program will animate the palette only up to the Maximum number of colors set. Don't select this when viewing shaded images because the shaded part of the image won't be animated when this is selected. D. Type - choose this pull down menu to change the type of the drawing you want to make. Select this by pressing Alt-T. Use the arrow keys to move the highlight bar. Press return to toggle the options or change the contents of a data window. At any time press two times to return to the main entry window. a. Draw Sphere Select this to draw the mandelbrot/julia set into a sphere. You can change the 3d parameters of the sphere by choosing the 'Change sphere perspe' in the 'Drawing' pull down menu. The sphere mode looks better with negative scaling. You can change the color of the surface of the sphere by changing the 'starting color' from the 'Enter Color' pull down menu. (To make a 'colored sphere' image, select false to sectional view and from the 'Change Sphere Perspe', set depth to 0.) b. Draw Cube This will draw the mandelbrot/julia set using a cube. You can change the parameters of the cube by selecting 'Change 3d perspectiv' option in the 'Drawing' pull down menu. c. Draw 2D Select this in order to display the image in 2d. It's useful to be able to display the image in 2d when using zoom windows because it's a lot faster and more accurate. You can easily make 2d images from rawfiles. d. Crater % If you set this to something bigger than 0 then 3DMAND will turn on the crater mode. The range for this value is between 0 and 100 - bigger values will increase the depth of the crater. Crater mode works only when you are drawing in potential mode. (Crater mode draws iterations less than 9 at normal scaling and iterations bigger than 9 at opposite scaling.) E. V Mode - Choose this pull down menu to change the variable parameters. The variable parameters gets saved to or loaded from image files so they may change when you load in an image file. Select this by pressing Alt-V. 1. Draw Potential If you don't select potential, some images will start to resemble terraced landscapes. If you select potential mode, you'll see continuous variations. In order to select this mode, you have to select 'conventional mode' in the 'SelectCalcMode' option. You cannot use 8087 mode or Fractint mode if you want to draw potentials. Also, the maximum iteration limit is 5000. 2. SelectCalcMode - 8087mode If you select this the program will calculate images using an assembly program that uses the 8087's stack registers. - Conventionalmode Select this if you've selected potential mode or if you can't use '8087mode' or 'fractintmode'. This mode is the slowest of the three. - Fractintmode Select this in order to use integer calculating methods. You are limited to 32760 iterations and the magnification is limited to 8 digits. This mode is about 2 times faster than '8087mode'. 3. Shadow Select this in order to see ray traced shadows. You should set the shadow angle in the Data Menu before drawing shaded images. Look at 'shaded.3dv' for an example. 4. Julia If you want to draw Julia images, select Julia mode and then enter the 'Julia Real' and 'Julia Imag' from the 'EnterData' menu and then change the Min X Cor, the Min Y Cor, and the Size in the Data Entry screen to an appropriate value. (for example -2, -2, 4) 5. Drawstars Selecting this will draw stars on black colored areas. F. I Data - To select this menu, press Alt-I. Using this menu, you can change many data parameters related to drawing the image. a. X resolution This sets the X (real) resolution of the image made. This does not have any affect on the hardware screen mode. The hardware screen resolution remains at 320x200x256 for this version of 3DMAND. What this value changes is the density of the plotting. Sometimes it makes sense to select a value more than 320 when you are drawing an image that might have boundaries outside the screen. This also selects the number of iterations calculated per line. You can obtain a suggested X resolution value by pressing 'p' from the 'Change 3-D perspective' function. Anything less may result in a drafty looking image. b. Y resolution The Y (imaginary) resolution of the image made. c. Minimum Iteration Set this value to change the Minimum Iteration. This simply sets the minimum number of iterations calculated. If a certain point results in an iteration less than the minimum iteration, it is given the minimum iteration value. It might be necessary to increase the minimum iteration in order use the palette more efficiently when the maximum iterations is high. d. shadow angle This sets the angle of the light used in making shadowed images. Select a value between 0 and 90. 0 is from the top. 90 is from the side. e. Julia Real Use this to set Julia Real Manually. f. Julia Imag Use this to set Julia Imag Manually. g. Potential Slope The optimal value is 100. Decrease this in order to get a less steeper slope. Increase this value in order to get a more steeper slope. h. Change 3D Perspective - Using this function, you can change the viewpoint, size, etc for use in drawing the 3D-cube perspective. You will see a cube drawn on the screen. If it's zoomed in to the point where the image covers the whole screen, you'll probably not be able to see the whole cube as most of the lines would be outside the screen. In this case, zoom out by pressing 'z' until you can see the entire cube. White lines show the edges of the cube near the direction of light. Blue lines show the base of the cube. Use the arrow keys to rotate the cube horizontally or vertically. You can also roll the image by pressing ',' or '.'. Using 'I','J','K','M' (capital letters) keys you can pan the image. At any time, you can press 'F1' to get help on commands. Press 'd' to return the image to the default configuration if you've lost track. Press 't' for the 'box' configuration used in 3DMAND2. Press 'p' to see the parameters and an advice on what the X, Y resolution should be. Press 'T' to leave a trace behind. (For reference, you may not get correct results if you try to look from inside the set.) commands summary : F1 - help screen Up arrow/Down Arrow - change PHI. Rotate Up/Down Left arrow/Right Arrow - change THETA. Rotate Left/Right a - Zoom in z - Zoom out j - decrease X horizontal ratio k - increase X horizontal ratio i - decrease Z vertical ratio m - increase Z vertical ratio o - decrease Y horizontal ratio l - increase Y horizontal ratio J - pan left K - pan right I - pan up M - pan down , - rotate counter clockwise . - rotate clockwise d - return to default configuration t - box configuration T - leave a trace behind p - print coordinates return - save new perspective i. Change Sphere Perspective - Using this function, you can change the viewpoint, size, etc for use in drawing the sphere perspective. You will see a sphere drawn on the screen. A sphere section will show the part of the sphere in which the mandelbrot/julia set will be drawn. The sphere section can go around the edge of the sphere if you want to. The part behind the visible portion of the sphere will not be plotted. The sphere section will have curved lines in the middle showing the maximum depth. If it's zoomed in to the point where the image covers the whole screen, you'll probably see only part of the sphere as some of the curves would be outside the screen. In this case, zoom out until you can see the entire sphere. Use the arrow keys to change the coordinate of the lower right part of the sphere section. Use the 'i','j','l','m' keys to change the coordinate of the upper left part of the sphere section. You can roll the image clockwise or counter clockwise by pressing ',' or '.'. Using 'I','J','K','M' keys you can pan the image. At any time, you can press 'F1' for help on commands. Press 'd' to return the image to default configurations if you've lost track. Press 'p' to see the parameters. Press 'f' to increase the horizontal ratio making an elliptical image. Press 'v' to decrease the horizontal ratio making a vertically elliptical image. Press 'A' to Decrease the depth making a more level image. Press 'Z' to increase the depth making a less level image. Press y,g,h,b keys to pan the sphere section. Press to set the sphere to the new settings. Press to exit without making any changes. commands summary : F1 - help screen Up arrow/Down Arrow - change the lat of the lower right part of the sphere. Left arrow/Right Arrow - change the long of the lower right part of the sphere. a - Zoom in z - Zoom out A - Decrease depth Z - Increase depth j,k - change the long of the upper left part of the sphere section. i,m - change the lat of the upper left part of the sphere section. y - decrease the latitude of both the upper part and the lower part. b - increase the latitude of both the upper part and the lower part. g - decrease the longitude of both the left part and the right part. h - increase the longitude of both the left part and the right part. , - rotate counter clockwise . - rotate clockwise d - return to default configuration p - print coordinates f - increase the horizontal ratio the sphere v - decrease the horizontal ratio the sphere return - save new perspective j. Entire Set Press this in order to draw the entire set. This function will set the X Cor, Y Cor and the square size appropriately to draw the entire set. G. Choose Color - To select this menu, press Alt-D. Using this menu, you can set some of the colors. a. White Spot Color/Black Spot Color This is used to set the color of the mandelbrot lake. You can select a value between 0 and 150. If the maximum number of colors is not 150 then something in between is selected. b. BackGroundColor This sets the background color. You can select a value between 0 and 150, 0 being black. If the maximum number of colors is not 150 then something in between is selected. This should be set to 1 in sphere mode. c. Starting Color Use this to set the surface color of the Sphere in Spheremode. In Cubemode, this will set the color of the minimum iterations. - Sometimes, you might want the background color to match the color of the maximum iterations. To do this, set Starting color to 0 and background color to Max Color. d. If you set this, the program will change to a new palette when the image is loaded. H. Slides - To select this menu, press Alt-S. Using this menu, you can load, edit and run slidefiles. Data Entry Window. a. Name of New Slidefile Select this in order to change the slidefile name. This will not immediately load or save the slidefile. b. Load *.3DS Highlight this option and press return. The Slidefile list you choose will be loaded into memory from the disk. c. Load Slidefile Highlight this option and press return. A Slidefile list will be loaded into memory from the disk. c. Edit Slidefile This will start editing the slidefile list. The slidefile is numbered top to bottom and then right to left starting from the upper left part of the screen. In all, it can store up to 114 filenames. You can't have blanks in between entries. In order to get help on editing the slidefile list, press 'F1' to see the editing commands. You can also directly change the contents of the slidefile list by typing the filename in after moving the curser to the right place in the slidefile list. If you want to run more than 114 filenames, you can put slidefile list names into the slidefile list. This will save the original slidefile into a stack and then load/run the new slidefile. After running the new slidefile, the original slidefile will be popped from the stack and continued. (see the demo movie for an example.) You can also select an image file from the slidefile list by pressing Alt-F4 after moving the cursor into the imagefile's cell. When you do this, the imagefile the cursor is on will be selected as the current 'Image File name' and it's configuration will be loaded into memory. By pressing Alt-F5 you will also view the image as well as select it. Pressing Alt-F6 will reverse the slidefile list. Pressing Ins will insert a blank cell. Pressing Alt-F1 will insert the filename the cursor is on instead of a blank. Pressing Del will delete an imagefile from the slidefile list. Pressing Alt-F7 will erase the entire slidefile list. Also you can put directives in the place of filenames in order to control the sliderun. 't+' or 't-' will alternate scroll the palette once. 'p+', 'p-' will turn the 'Part Animate' mode on and off. 'a+','a-' will turn 'Animaterun slidefile' on and off. 's+','s-' will turn Load Shadowmode on and off. 'fsa+', 'fsa-' will turn fast slidefile animation on and off. In order to run the slidefile Palindromically you should put directives in reverse order at the end. See 'shaded.3ds' for an example on inserting directives for displaying shaded images in slidefiles. In order to load a shaded image properly, you should make sure 's+' and 'p-' surround the shaded images. Command Summary: Alt F1 Insert an Imagefile name Alt F4 Select Imagefile Alt F5 Select & View Imagefile Alt F6 Reverse list Alt F7 Clear Slidefile list Alt F8 Load Slidefile list Ins Insert a Blank Del Delete a filename from the slidefile list. Slidefile list directives: t+ altscroll. t- altscroll in the opposite direction. p+ turn 'part animate' on. p- turn 'part animate' off. a+ turn animate run slidefile on. a- turn animate run slidefile off. s+ turn loadshadowmode on. s- turn loadshadowmode off. fsa+ turn fast slidefile animation on. fsa- turn fast slidefile animation off. r+ turn use rawfile on. r- turn use rawfile off. Selecting this function is the same as pressing Alt-2. In order to get back to the data entry screen, press Alt-1 or . d. Save Slidefile This will save the slidefile list in memory to disk. If there exists a slidefile in disk of the same name, it will be written over. e. Run Slidefile This will start displaying the images. All the images will be displayed once and then the program will return to the data entry screen. The palette will be animated in between the images. To temporarily stop the sliderun, press the space bar. To animate the palette, press 'a'. Refer to section K for more information on animating the palette of an image. Press to continue the sliderun. - Making multiple images. If there are any unfinished images inside the slidefile, the 'Run Slidefile' function will complete the unfinished images as it goes along. Using the 'SaveConfig' or the 'Make Movie' function, you can easily make several blank images which you can complete one after the other by putting them in a slidelist and running 'Run Slidefile'. f. Pause Run Slidefile This is similar to 'Run Slidefile' except that the program will pause after displaying each image. Press after each slide in order to continue. You can also press 'n' in order to show the name of the image file. g. C Run Slidefile This will run the slidefile repeatedly. To stop and return to the main menu, press the key. When you select C Run Slidefile, the program will only load the configuration of the first image in the slidefile. C Run Slidefile is faster than 'Run Slidefile' because it does not load the configuration information of the other image files. Also, C Run Slidefile will not try to complete incomplete images. I. Drawing - To select this menu, press Alt-D. From this menu, you can create new drawings, make movies and edit images. a. Current Setting This will draw the mandelbrot set as configured by the data entry window and the pull down menus. When you want to make a new drawing, run this function after changing the image filename to that of the new drawing. You can also finish incomplete images using this function. When you select this option, the current settings will be saved in the "MANDEL_W.CFG" file and the program will start drawing the image. If the drawing is already finished, it will display the image. If you've selected preview mode, you will at first see a sparse drafty-looking preview of what the final result might look like. In drawing the actual image, the program will calculate a line of iterations and then draw a section of the image repeatedly until the image is finished. Iterations calculated is displayed at the upper left part of the screen. If you are using an iteration raw file, the program will load a line of iterations from disk and then draw them on the screen repeatedly until the image is finished. The estimated amount of time that might be needed to complete the image will blink on and off at the bottom part of the screen. If you've selected 'Animate Unfinished D', the palette will scroll after each line. To stop the image generation for now and continue from where you've left off later, press the key (This might take a while as the program checks only occasionally for a keyboard input.) Also, if an image takes too long to finish, the program will automatically save the intermediate result and recycle after every two hours. To abort the image generation, press the 'q' key. - To animate the palette. After the image is finished, you will hear a small beep (If you've enabled sound). Press two times to clear the 'animating..' message. Press 'c' and then 'a' to start animating the image by scrolling the palette. Press numbers '1' through '5' after pressing 'a' in order to change the speed of the palette animation. Press '-' or '+' to change the scroll direction. Press the space bar in order to animate step by step. Press 'c' in order to animate continuously. At any time press 't' in order to select the alternate palette animation. If you want to return to the main menu, just press the key. - Zooming in.. To Zoom in on an image, press and then 'F1' after the image is displayed through the 'current settings' option. For simplicity, only the four corners of the zoom window is displayed. You will see four white dots and four red dots at the center of the screen. The red dots show the iteration of the current XxY position. The white dots show the current XxY position. Drawing the dots will be delayed at higher iterations unless you are using a 2d image because the program has to calculate each iteration in order to calculate the red dots. Press 'I' or 'M' to move the window up or down. Press 'J' or 'K' to move the window left or right. Press 'a' or 'z' to change the size of the square. Move the zoom-in window until the dots completely surround the area you want to zoom into. And then press return. The dots will blink for a while and you'll see the 'zoom set' message on the upper left part of the screen. This will only change the X (Real), Y (Imaginary) coordinates and the Square size. The Zoom will be changed to 1 if it was some other value. In order to draw the area you've just zoomed into, change the image file name, select the draw option and then run the 'current settings' function. - Setting the Julia coordinates with the Zoom Window. To set a Julia image using the zoom window, you must first load a mandelbrot image by using the 'current settings' function. You should make sure that the zoom window does not lie inside the mandelbrot lake. After moving the window to the mandelbrot coordinate you want to make the Julia set out of, press ']' instead of . When you press ']' the XxY coordinate of the center of the four dots will be saved into Julia Real and Julia Imag. The min X cor and the min Y cor remains unchanged so that you can change them later. To see the entire Julia set, you should set the Min X cor, Min Y Cor, Square Size and Zoom to -2,-2, 4 and 1. (Notice that you can zoom into Julia images just like any other image) - Caution on using raw files. When you delete an unfinished image, and fail to delete the rawfile (the file with the '.RAW' extension) and then try to make a new drawing with the same name, the program will try to resume making the rawfile and pick off from where the rawfile ended even if the coordinates are wrong. So, if you want to make a different drawing using the same name, be sure to delete the rawfile also. commands summary: keys usage i,j,k,m - move window a,z - change the size of the window c - scroll palette - set zoom ] - set julia set b. Save Config Press this instead of 'current settings' when you want to make a blank image. The program will save the configuration data into a blank image file 2048 bytes long. You can later resume this empty image file in order to complete the image. c. Load Config Pressing this will load the configuration information stored in an image file. Selecting the 'Current Settings' function will also load the configuration information. Still, 'Load Config' is useful because you can load the config information of an image file without displaying it. d. Show Zoom After zooming in on an image, you might want to see the coordinates of the zoomed image again from the original image. To do this, first load the image you zoomed from. If you select this function, you will be prompted to input the 'Zoom-in 3DV' file. If you do so, it will load the 'filename' image and then show with 4 white dots the coordinates of the zoomed image file you just entered. e. Movie Using this function, you can make a movie using two image files to set the beginning and the end. The Movie procedure will create images in between the starting and the ending image file. First you have to select the number of slides. If you want to make a smooth running movie, select a big number. Next, input the movie title. It has to be 5 chars long. Next, type in the extension you want to use. (You might want to use an extension other than '3DV' - if you want to make use of rawfiles made from previous movies of the same title and length.) Next enter the starting and the ending image file. The Starting and the ending image files have to be made individually. Also, the starting and the ending image files has to be of the same type. The procedure will then make image files that go between the starting and the ending image file, changing most of the variables associated with drawing the image. Notice that what you are making are blank images. In order to see the slidefile, go to the slidefile editing screen by pressing Alt-2. You will see the filenames of the blank images just created by the Movie procedure added to the end of the slidefile. In order to actually make the movie, save the Slidefile using an appropriate slidefile name and then run the slidefile using 'Run Slidefile'. This will complete the blank image files made by the movie function. f. Zoom Movie If you are making a movie in which the ending set's square size is more than 1000 times bigger or smaller than the starting set, using the 'Movie' function will not be very useful because you'd have to make too many slides in order to make a movie. If you use 'Zoom Movie' instead of the 'Movie' procedure, the square size will change geometrically instead of arithmetically. This will enable you to make a zoom movie using few slides. g. Make Movie-s. If you want to make a movie using a single rawfile, select this procedure. Everything else is similar to the 'movie' function except that you will be prompted to enter the Rawfile name. When you pre-set the Rawfile name, all the images in the slidefile will be made using a single rawfile. h. Make Movie-r Using this function, you can make images using a key frame rawfile. When you are using this function, you need two image files. The beginning image file has to be completed and must have a rawfile. This will be the key frame set. The ending image file doesn't have to be completed but must be a subset of the beginning image. The new images will be calculated using portions of the key frame set. In order to prevent the new images from becoming too sparse, the ending images's square width should be bigger than 80% of the square width of the key frame set. These new images would be created without calculating new iterations. Notice that the clockwise angle will remain the same in the new slides regardless of how it may have been changed because they are all generated from a single raw file. This function would be of use if you want to make a smoother running movie. i. Combine Movies Using this function, you can combine two movies together, using one as the background and the other as the foreground. First enter the number of slides for the output file. And then enter the number of slides in the background file. And then enter the background movie name and extension. After that, enter the foreground movie length, name and extension. And then enter the output movie name and extension. The number of slides for the output movie should be less than or equal to either the foreground movie or the background movie whichever one is bigger. These files must be present in the default path. After that, enter the output movie title and extension. You can not run this function in nographic mode. In order to view the new slidefile, go to the slidefile editing screen by pressing Alt-2. Notice that the new slides are added to the end of the slidefile. Edit the slidefile if needed and then save the slidefile using an appropriate slidefile name. You can now run the slidefile. The foreground images should not completely overlap the background images or you'll only see the foreground images. The black colored areas of the foreground image will be replaced by that of the background image. j. Flip Horizontally Flip the image Horizontally and save it on disk. (Once you alter the image, the zoom window may not work accurately.) k. Flip Vertically Flip the image Vertically and save it on disk. (Once you alter the image, the zoom window may not work accurately.) l. Re-size / edit To Re-size the entire image: This will plot the current image into the size and location you specify. When you select this, the current image will be displayed on the screen along with a white rectangle. Press i,j,k,m keys to move rectangle. Press the arrow keys to change the shape of the rectangle.. Press 'a' or 'z' to increase or decrease the size of the rectangle.. Press 'X' to see the rectangle's coordinates. After setting the rectangle, press enter to re-size and save the image to the size and location outlined by the rectangle. The image will be re-plotted and saved. If you press ']' instead of enter, the background will not be erased. To Re-size a portion of the image: This will plot a portion of the current image as you specify. When you select this, the current image will be displayed on the screen along with a white rectangle. Press i,j,k,m keys to move the rectangle. Press the arrow keys to change the shape of the rectangle. Press 'a' or 'z' to increase or decrease the size of the rectangle. Press 'X' to see the rectangle's coordinates. After setting the rectangle, press '[' to lock onto the capture coordinates. After that, you'll see another rectangle on the screen. Set this rectangle as before to the size and shape of the output image. The captured image will be re-sized and re-plotted as specified. If you press ']' instead of the background won't be erased. To Draw a white box on the image: Change the shape of the rectangle as described above and press 'b'. This will leave a white box on the image. To add text onto the image: Press 'T' after the rectangle box appears. Enter text color and text. The text will be overlaid on top of the image at the bottom part of the screen. To draw multiple copies of the same image onto the screen : Press '}' to copy the same image over and over again. You must press ']' for the last copy. You can not copy images and then add text at the same time. You'll have to save the image first. To draw multiple rectangles onto the screen : Press 'B' instead of 'b'. To change the step rate, press '1'..'9' or '0' for ten. (Once you alter the image, the zoom window may not work accurately.) Keys Summary i,j,k,m - move box arrow keys - re-size box b - draw box and save. B - draw box. [ - specify the source image. (default is entire screen.) ] - draw image and save. enter - clear screen, draw image and save. } - draw image. '1'..'0' - change step rate. m. Mix Mode In order to combine two images together, making a third image, select this procedure. You will be prompted to input the name of the background, the foreground image file and the output file. The background and the foreground files have to be completed images. The procedure will draw the foreground file over the background file and then save it in the output file. n. Change Config This will save the Configuration information in memory to an existing image file. This will not change the image stored in the image file. J. Hot keys a. Alt - F2 (Save Config) save current configurations to a blank image file of the current Image filename. b. Alt - F3 (Load Config) load the configurations in the Image filename to memory. c. Alt - F4 select an image file the cursor is on in the slidefile list and load in the configurations. d. Alt - F5 Select & view an image file the cursor is on in the slidefile list. e. Alt - 1 go to the main data entry window. f. Alt - 2 go to the slide file edit window. K. Animating an image a. Animating a slide in a sliderun At any time during a sliderun, you can animate an image by pressing the space bar to stop the sliderun and then any of the following keys. a press 'a' to select the default palette animation. t press 't' to choose alternate palette animation. space bar press the space bar to step scroll the palette c press c to continuously scroll the palette + scroll the palette in one direction. - scroll the palette in the opposite direction. return press return to continue running the sliderun. n shows the name of the slidefile The above keys can also be used after displaying a slide through the 'view image' or the 'current setting' function. 4. Command Line Parameters. /nographic - switches on nographic mode. In nographic mode, you can generate raw files and images without using a vga system. You can do everything except mix, combine, zoom window and resize/edit. If you want the program to run in the background in 386 enhanced mode, you should turn this on. /slide:demo.3ds - this will automatically load and run a slide named demo.3ds /nomessage - this will turn off checking for a vga system. /nowarning - this will turn off the initial warnings. 5. Common problems A. working with Windows a. memory You need 572K free conventional memory in order to run mandel_w.exe. If you need to run 3DMAND3 with less conventional memory mandel_v.exe can run with 519K of memory. You won't be able to use getwindow, makemovie, combine, showzoom, re-size, 'change 3d perspective' and 'change sphere perspective' while running mandel_v.exe. The 3DMAND program does not uses any expanded memory. B. Speed a. Why does the plotting gets suddenly slower when drawing sets beyond 32000 iterations or when the shadow mode is on. - Non-shadow mode sets with iterations below 32000 are plotted using a machine language drawing routine which is at least 3 times faster than the alternative. b. It takes too long to run my slidefile. - A disk caching software will dramatically improve the speed of the sliderun speed. Running from a RAM disk will also improve the speed. Also, make sure 'fast run slidefile' is turned on. C. Display a. I see flickers at the top of the screen when the program is animating the palette. - The program tries to change the palette only when the VGA is in a retrace period. If there isn't enough time to change the palette in time, the program will end up changing the color registers during an active refresh period which will cause snowing to occur. When snowing occurs, turn the fast animate mode off. This way, the palette will be changed in two pieces. This should prevent the snowing from occurring. b. The colors of the dark part of my shadowed image won't change when I try to animate the palette. - When you want to view a shadowed image, turn the part animate mode off. This will enable the animation of the shadowed part of the palette. D. Generating an image. a. I can clearly see that the slide is finished. But the program keeps on running. - That's because the program is processing pixels outside the screen. If you want to force the image into completion, press '&' if you aren't making a rawfile. If you are making a rawfile, you should let the program go on to finish the rawfile or you will end up with an incomplete rawfile. b. The Rawfile is over 1 million bytes long! How can I reduce the size of the rawfile? - Rawfiles of images with iterations above 64000 will have rawfiles two times bigger than those with iterations below 64000. Also, you could try reducing the X and Y resolution and turning on doubledensity. You could also try compressing unused rawfiles using a compression utility. c. It takes too long to calculate the iterations. - You could try to reduce the X and Y resolution. This could be done from the I Data menu. This will naturally make the plotting sparse. When this happens, select doubledensity mode. Selecting doubledensity mode will increase the plotting time but the improvement in the quality of the image is definitely worth it. Also, selecting Fractint mode when applicable will speed up the calculation. Also, turning on Fastmode will improve the iteration calculating speed at lower iterations by skipping 2x2 pixels surrounded by the same color. Using old iteration raw files whenever possible to generate a new image will also reduce the time spent calculating new iterations.