FOTD -- January 09, 2008 (Rating 7) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: In keeping with the January theme, today's fractal takes us to a valley of the Mandelbrot set. It is not Seahorse Valley, but rather the inside of the east branch of the valley enclosing the large southern period-3 bud. This valley has a name, though at the moment I cannot remember the name. The image has a maxiter of 200,000, and a logmap value of minus 31,250, but thanks to the speeded-up type=mandel formula and the efficiency with which the P2000 unit handles the speeded-up for- mula, today's image calculates in just a few seconds more than a minute. Coloring today's image presented a bit of a problem. With the logmap turned off, the image was too chaotic to be useful, while with a positive logmap value, the iteration bands were squeezed too far toward the low end. The negative value works reasonably well however, though even in this case, the bands are squeezed a bit too far toward the high end. With nothing of exceptional interest in the image, I rated it at a 7. The name "In a Hidden Valley" is not only poetic but describes the location of the image. The calculation time of just over one minute on my fireball computer is quite reason- able, but could easily leap to an hour or more on an older machine. All problems may be avoided however by viewing the finished image on the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> Incredibly spring-like weather in midwinter continued here at Fractal Central on Tuesday as the temperature reached 70F 21C along with bright sun and gentle breezes. The fractal cats noticed the pleasant conditions, then rolled over and went back to sleep. My day was busier than expected, but nowhere near hectic. The next FOTD will be posted in 24 hours. Until then, take care, and science assumes that the physical world is real, and science works very well, so why then do philosophers keep discussing the nature of reality? Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= In_a_Hidden_Valley { ; time=0:01:11.30-SF5 on P4-2000 reset=2004 type=mandel center-mag=-0.1197639246212\ 321/-0.6496272393531843/3.787523e+010/1/168.5/0 params=0/0 float=y maxiter=200000 inside=0 logmap=-31250 periodicity=10 colors=000_Yzj9MhANgAOfAPeAQdARcASbBSacz`cz_BVZBWY\ BXXBXZmz_IX`LXbOX000dUXfXXUWXhcXjfXk`XllXnoXorXpzX\ nrZmo`klbjjchgegdgebhd_jbXlaVm_SoZPqYNrXJiWFaVCTU8\ LT5Dl0yoAtrJouSkvPlvMmvJnwGowDowApx7qq4rt1rqChjT_c\ XRXZIzzUvwAmpAdlAZgBTaBTYBTVCURCUOCUKDUHDVDDVAEV6E\ V3EW4GX5HY6JZ7K_8M`9NaAPbBQcCSdKTeUVfUWgUYg_Zh_XiU\ WiUVjDUjCTkBSkARl9Pl8Om7Nr6Mv5Lz4Kz3Jz2Iv5Jr7Jm9Kh\ CKcEL_GLXJLULMSNMPQNMSNKUNPWJUXGYZDb_9ga6kb3la7l`A\ l_El_HlZKlYOlXRmXVmWYmV`mUdmUgmTkmSnmSq_`hMi_8qSFm\ TMiTSfUZcUecUkcVrcVxcVscYnc_icadcc_cfVchQcjLclGcnI\ coJcoKcpLhpNmqOrqPwrQxrRyrxzCtzDpzElzEizFezGazGZzH\ VzHRzIOzJKzJGzKDzKCzJCzIBzHBzGBzGPzaazvbzvazt`zs`z\ q_zpZznZzmWzlUzlRzlPzlMzlKzlHzdFzYDzRBzK9zDNzF_zHl\ zJyzLxzKxzKxzKxzKxzKxzKxzKwzKwzKwzKwzKwzKwzKwzKwzK\ pzHizEbzBWz8Pz5Iz2ezvcztazs`zrRzfHzW7zL8zR9zW9z`Az\ eAzjHzeNzaTzY_zTezPjzQjzO } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================