Hi,
I’m
looking at how to bring forth an up-to-date, open source fractal generating
application into creation. The vision is to have a more robust Fractint-like application that offers a modern user
interface, GPU (video card) calculations, and a more robust feature set. Fractint users have offered many wonderful suggestions on Robin
Bussell's wish list that I would like to see realized.
A
survey of the field of fractal applications shows ~80 fractal generation
applications with varying feature sets. Only a handful of the current fractal
generating applications seem to have on-going maintenance and development. Fractint seems to have the most features of fractal
generating applications at the moment. One of the developers of the fractal
apps was joking that writing owns own fractal app is an obligatory action for
many programmers. The existence of so many fractal apps offers some evidence to
that truth. I think one of the strengths Fractint has
is that instead of ~80 developers writing their own application ~80 developers
contributed to an open source project which became greater than any application
made by one or two developers.
I
abandoned the idea of writing my own application. Re-writing the wheel is not
really appealing. What I want is a richly featured modern fractal generating
app. What I want is basically Fractint with up-to-date
features.
So, how will
this up-to-date fractal generating application manifest?
.Net,
C#, and DirectX offer a modern user interface, real-time fractal calculation
using GPU pixel shaders, and up-to-date technologies
to develop new features going forward. I propose to rewrite Fractint
in c# for the .Net platform. Windows would be supported. Unix would be supported
to the extent .Net is implemented on Unix systems by the Mono project.
As
we know, there are many interesting things that can be done. Some ideas Fractint users have suggested to the wish list:
Video
Card acceleration,
Modern
user interface
Distributed
Calculation across CPUs
Key
Frame sequencing for deep zoom animation
Animation
response to audio patterns
Fractal
Audio Generation
Photoshop
Plug-ins
Winamp Plug-Ins
More
Coloring Options
Localization
Video
Animation
Screensavers
Internal
formula editor
Some
other features I would like to see are:
Peer-To-Peer
File swapping and Gallery
Item
Rating System
In-app
bug reporting
In-app
feature requesting
Variable
Canvas sizes
KPT-like
mutation lab (Randomness suggested form wish list)
Gradinet Designer (like KPT)
XML
File Formats
File
compatability with competing fractal applications
Inter-operability
with Adobe technologies
-
Palettes
-
Layers
Multiple
Image export formats
A
rewrite would go a long way to enabling an integrated engine to address all of
the would-b-nice requests to go forward. The intent is to build upon what has
already been done. The intent is to maintain open source ideas. The intent is
to continue developing the best fractal exploration application.
What
do you think? Is there any support, criticism, or suggestions you would like to
offer towards a Fractint.Net port?
Thanks,
Rana Ian
Fractint Wish List
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/members/robin.b2/olig/fracwish.htm
List of Fractal Applications
http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Software.html
GPU Shader Development
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/FX_Composer_Shaders.html
.Net Development
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/
The Mono Project (.Net on Unix)