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93 lines
4.0 KiB
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<title>Mandelbrot Fractals for Linux/X Issue 10</title>
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<center><h2>XaoS: A New Fractal Program for Linux</h2></center>
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<hr>
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<center><h4><a href="mailto:layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us">by Larry
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Ayers</a></h4></center>
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<center>Copyright (c) 1996</center><BR>
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<center><H5>Published in Issue 10 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
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<hr>
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<p>Transforming certain recursive complex-number formulae into images of
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unlimited depth and complexity was only made possible by the development of
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the modern computer. Benoit Mandelbrot, a Belgian researcher working for IBM,
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first discovered the Mandelbrot set in 1981. By the mid-eighties personal
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computers had evolved to the point that anyone could experiment with various
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fractals, and programmers soon discovered that the 8-bit 256-color vga palette
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could be mapped to various parameters, which allowed the creation of stunning
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animated images.
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<p>
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The most comprehensive and feature-filled of all fractal-generation programs
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is Fractint, a freeware program originally written for DOS. Fractint is
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maintained by a far-flung group of developers, rather like Linux. It was
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ported to unix by Ken Shirriff and a Linux version is commonly included in
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many Linux distributions. Not all features of the DOS version work in Linux,
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and if you just want to see what fractals are all about Fractint is probably
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overkill. It has such a multitude of options and features that it can be
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somewhat overwhelming to a new user.
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<p> Recently Jan Hubicka (developer of the Koules X-window game) and Thomas
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Marsh have released a small fractal program for Linux called XaoS. This is an
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efficient program, with the option to compile both X-Windows and
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SVGA-console versions. XaoS can't render the dozens of fractal types which
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Fractint can, but it does the basic Mandelbrot and Julia sets quickly, with
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several keyboard options.
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<p>It's developers refer to XaoS as "an interactive real-time fractal zoomer,"
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and zooming in on an area of the Mandelbrot set is where XaoS excels.
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Pressing a mouse button anywhere in the image will begin a zoom with the
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location of the cursor as target. The "autopilot" mode is quite impressive;
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pressing "a" will start an automatic zoom which homes in on detailed areas.
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In the X-windows version the default window-size is 320x200; if you don't mind
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the cpu-usage a small XaoS window zooming away on the desktop can be pleasant
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to contemplate as you pause in your work. For those working in virtual
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consoles an SVGAlib version can be run in a variety of resolutions.
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<p>Generating fractal images is inherently CPU-intensive. The faster your
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processor the better, especially when zooming in real time. XaoS does pretty
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well on my 80-mhz 486, but this may be near the lower limit.
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<p>Here's a screenshot of XaoS:<br><p>
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<img src="./gx/ayers/xaos.gif" alt="XaoS Window at 320x200" align=center>
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<p>XaoS only works on 8-bit displays at present, as is also true of
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Fractint. Images can be saved to GIF files by means of a keystroke.
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<hr>
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<center><h3>Installation</h3></center>
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<p>Xaos uses a configure script for compilation, and it should compile easily
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on most systems. The executable is only about fifty kilobytes and is
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completely self-contained, i.e. no subsidiary files are required.
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<hr>
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<center><h3>Availability</h3></center>
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<p>The <a href="http://www.realtime.net/~amadeus/XaoS">Xaos home-page</a> is a
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good source for the latest version; the source has also been uploaded to <a
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href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming">Sunsite</a> and its mirrors.
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<P>
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Larry Ayers
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