FOTD -- February 05, 2003 (Rating 5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: It's a bit hard to find an outstanding characteristic in today's FOTD image that might serve as the basis for a name. It's a simple scene of a classic quadratic midget located in a very un-classic fractal. When nothing better came to mind, I named the image "Classical Minibrot". The parent fractal, which was created by combining portions of Z^3.5 and Z^5.5, is anything but classic however. It consists of a long, narrow, large but shapeless body of open 'water' with a well-defined but rather distorted M-set lying some distance to the south. At first glance, the shapeless body appears totally non- critical, and therefore would not be expected to hold intact midgets. But in the world of fractals, things are not always as they seem. At least two rudimentary valleys appear on the western shore of the shapeless body. At first glance, these valleys also appear as though they would hold no midgets. The appearance is deceiving. Curious as to what other than midgets might lie in these valleys, I zoomed into the southern one and focused on an interesting feature. In this feature I noticed a pair of seahorse-like spirals with the symmetry that usually indicates the presence of a midget. I zoomed into the center of symmetry and found today's image. It's not a great fractal, in fact it's merely average, but it is still a significant improvement over yesterday's abysmal image, and if the present trend continues, we'll be back in positive territory within a day. One way to see the classical midget is to run the parameter file and wait 6 minutes or so. A faster way is to let Paul and Scott render the image and download it from one of their FOTD web sites at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> and at: <http://sdboyd.dyndns.org/~sdboyd/fotd/index.html> Tuesday morning at Fractal Central began rainy. It cleared shortly after noon, and the temperature reached a relatively mild 50F 10C, but high winds kept the fractal cats skittish, and they came inside after only a few minutes in the yard. They slept by the heat for the rest of the day. This morning is starting notably colder, though the high winds have died down. It's too early to say what the dynamic duo will do. What I'm going to do is first finish a bit of work and then try to find a better fractal. I've got a few ideas of where to look, but no success is guaranteed. Whatever I find will be tomorrow's FOTD. Until then, take care, and the quest for the perfect fractal might never end. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE================================ Classical_Minibrot { ; time=0:06:11.96--SF5 on a p200 reset=2002 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=ident passes=1 center-mag=-0.21829760034047560/-0.145214873755854\ 30/1.211417e+007/1/-152.5/1.45066905959945203e-007 params=3.67/3.5/3.7/5.5/0/0 float=y maxiter=1200 inside=0 logmap=86 periodicity=10 colors=000MEALB6L93ND7PGBQKESNIUQMVUPXXTZ`X_c_afcc\ jgdmjfqnhtriuuatjVp`OkRHfHAb7D_8GX9IWALVBOUCQTCTSD\ VREYQF`PGbOGeNHhMIjLJmKKoJKnMImPHlSFkUEjXCi_BhaAgd\ 8fg7ej5dl4co2br1at0Zs5WrATqEQpJNoOKnSHmXElaBke8jj6\ jn8ekA`hBWeDRbFN_GIXIDUK8RL4PTBV_H`gOfnUkiTfdSb_RZ\ VRVQQRLPNHPJE_KCiKBhIBhHBhFBgEBgCBgBBgAAf8Af7Af5Ae\ 4Ae2Ae1Ae0G`3MW5RR8XMAbHDgCFm7Ir3Kp6Jo9JmBJlEIjGIi\ JIgMIfOHdRHcTHaWH`ZGZ`GYcGXeGzAYwCXtEXqGXnIXlKWiMW\ fNWcPWaRVZTVWVVTXVRYVSWUSVTTUSTTRUSQUQPVPOVONWNMWM\ M_LRVNMROHNPDJQ8FR4MVISZWZbidevchvbkvamvapv`rv_uv_\ wvSkvL`vEQvGUsHXqJ`nKclLfiNjgOmdPpbQn`QmZQkXQjVQhT\ QgRQePQdNQcLTdKVeKXfKZfK`gKbhJdhJfiJhjJjjJfcJbYJZR\ JWLJUPHSSGRVFPZDOaCMdBLgAJiAIkAHmAGoAFqAEsAIuEMwIP\ xMTyPXzT_zXcz`fzcezeezfezgezheziezjfzegzagzYhzUizP\ izLjzHjzDhzGfzIdzLbzN`zP_zSYzUWzWUzZSz`RzbPzZNzWLz\ SJzPIzLGzIEzECzBAz79z4BzH } 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 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE==================================