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Well, after requesting and then downloading Sylvie's "3D" maps [thanks for the links!], I found myself in the same situation of having to manually load each map into an image, inspect it, save or not, etc. For dozens or hundreds of maps?! I'm getting to old for that - no more!!!
So I remembered some old DOS stuff from the good old days; should have thought of this long ago!
Now if you have a fractint image and you want to see how it looks in any number of different maps to select the best one, do this:
1] display the image in fractint, then hit the "B" key and save it to a PAR file with a name, etc.
2] example, the file is called NEW.PAR and the image entry is named STARZOOM.
3] and in this single directory you have ALL the fractint files and ALL the maps you want to check out
4] create a simple ascii text file (like in notepad) and put in it this one line exactly as it is:
for %%f in (*.map) do echo FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=%%f SAVENAME=%%f BATCH=YES >> maptry.bat
5] save and name that text file anything you want, but it must have a BAT extension.
6] run it from the command prompt in that directory
7] it will generate another file called "MAPTRY.BAT" , and it will have a line for each and every MAP file that is in the directory, like this:
FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG101.MAP SAVENAME=SGG101.MAP BATCH=YES FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG100.MAP SAVENAME=SGG100.MAP BATCH=YES FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG099.MAP SAVENAME=SGG099.MAP BATCH=YES FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG098.MAP SAVENAME=SGG098.MAP BATCH=YES
and so on.
8] Next you must remove the ".MAP" entries; I use a simple search and replace program I downloaded from compuserve 20 years ago and still use. Replace ".MAP" with a space character " ".
So you get this:
FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG101 SAVENAME=SGG101 BATCH=YES FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG100 SAVENAME=SGG100 BATCH=YES FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG099 SAVENAME=SGG099 BATCH=YES FRACTINT VIDEO=F8 @NEW.PAR/STARZOOM MAP=SGG098 SAVENAME=SGG098 BATCH=YES
9] Run that batch file in the directory; fractint will create the image from the par with the given map, and save it as a gif file named for the map! Then you can look at all the GIFS in any windows graphics viewer, or from fractint one at a time.
This is a quick and dirty technique, I thought I would share it for all interested. I am trying to refine this so you don't have to manually search and replace the ".BAT" entries, but I haven't figured out how yet.
Cheers
JoTz
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