FOTD -- July 12, 2005 (Rating 5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: There is a curious phenomenon well known to artists, which I call circular improvement. It happens when an artist studies his work and decides that something needs to be changed to improve the work. When the change is made, he sees another change that would improve it further. Finally, after numerous changes, every one of which brings a small improvement, he compares the revised work to the work as it stood before he began the revisions. Surprise! The original version is in some ways better than the much revised version. This same thing happened to me as I worked on the colors of today's image. After many color revisions, I found myself back where I started. To produce today's fractal I made a very small change to the parameters of yesterday's image. The tiny change opened the spurious area of chaos into a whole new world of exploration. I have just begun the exploration, but already I have found several scenes worth additional effort. Today's image is named "Hanging Gardens". No, we are not back in ancient Babylon, we are in a fractal in the present-day era of advanced technology that is leading us to who-knows-what. The scene resembles a mountainous terrain with a garland of flowery decorations stretching across the sky. The garland appears to be hanging from nothing, thus the name. Though my trademark midget is nowhere to be seen in today's image, countless midgets too small to be seen lie hidden throughout it. One of these midgets will reveal itself in tomorrow's FOTD. The image consists of half outside and half inside stuff. The inside stuff has been rendered with the inside set to 'bof61'. Some of the other inside settings produce images nearly as good. I could rate today's image no higher than a 5. Without a midget at the center it just doesn't seem to be a true Fractal of the Day. The render time of 15 minutes can be cut drastically by calculating the image with the passes set to 'g' or 't', though doing so will cause a bit of the finer detail to be missed. A better way of saving time is to download the pre-rendered GIF image from the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> The high temperature of 90F 32C here at Fractal Central on Monday was quite warm for the dynamic duo to endure, but being intrepid, they braved the conditions for all of two hours, keeping as cool as possible in the shade of the holly trees. I braved the tropical conditions in the comfort of my air-cooled workroom, where the FOTD images come into being. Today is starting the same; I expect more of the same from the fractal cats. The next FOTD image will appear in 24 hours. Until then, take care, don't be too credulous, and don't become too closed minded. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Hanging_Gardens { ; time=0:15:39.36--SF5 on a P200 reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=ident passes=1 center-mag=-17.9735/-1.95726/0.8318545/1/7.5/3.885\ 7805861880479e-016 params=-0.99/1.01/0.99/-1/0/3600 float=y maxiter=1000 inside=bof61 periodicity=10 colors=000QBOPCzODRNEzNFTMHzLIVKJzKKYJLzIM_HOzGPaG\ QmFRdESeDUfDVgCWhBXiAYk9_z9`m8Un7cp6cp6cq7cp7cp7bn\ 7co7al7cn7_k7cm7Zi7cl7Yg7ck7Xf7cj7Wd8Vc8Ub8Ub8Ta8T\ `8S_8RZPU_QWZRYYSSXT`WUWWVcVW`UWUTXeSYjSZkR_UQ`oPa\ UObxKaUMasNaqOaoPamRakSajT`hU`fV`eX`cY`bZ``_UUa`_`\ _Z_ZYZYYZYXYXWXWWXVVWUUVUUVTTUSSTRSTRRSQQRPQROPQNO\ PNOPMNOLMNKMNJLMJKLIKLHJKGIJHHIGIJGIJGJJGJJGKKGKKG\ LKGLKGMKGMLFNLFNLFOLFOMFPMFPMFQMFQMFRNFRNFSNESNETO\ ETOEUOEUOEVOEVPEWPEWPEXPCWNEXPGXQHYRJYSLYTMZUOZVQ_\ WR_XT_YV`_W``Yaa_ab`acbbddbeecfgcgkdihchfbhcaga`gZ\ _gXZfUYfSXfPWeNVeKUeITdFSdDRdAQc8Pc6Oc8Pd9QdAReCSe\ DSeETfFUfHVfIVgJWgKXgMYhNZhOZiQ_iR`iSWjTajVWjWckXW\ k`boZYmYdkX`iWfgVaeUgcScaRi_QbYPiWO`UNjSMcQKjOJcMI\ kKHaIGjGFUEDjCCdABi8A`69i48b27g08Z49gCA`KBhSCb_Djb\ BclEjpGWpIfpKbpMipPUpRjpThpVfpXNp_cpaapc_pUZpgXpUV\ plUpUSpKLpLNpMOpNQpORpGMp } frm:MandelbrotMix4 {; Jim Muth a=real(p1), b=imag(p1), d=real(p2), f=imag(p2), g=1/f, h=1/d, j=1/(f-b), z=(-a*b*g*h)^j, k=real(p3)+1, l=imag(p3)+100, c=fn1(pixel): z=k*((a*(z^b))+(d*(z^f)))+c, |z| < l } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================