March | 2012 | Fractal Architect Blog

Submitted for review to Apple on April 1st. (Its not an April Fools joke!)

Changes for Version 2.2

This is customer requested features release – almost all features were requested by various users.

Feature Change ================

1. New BIG Feature for Render to File: (OpenCL rendering only)

You can stop the render and save the Render State to a file. This allows you to resume the render at a later date.

You can choose to Save all Render State when rendering. This allows you to add more Quality to the render later and experiment with Post processing parameter changes.

2. New Feature : Fractal Stash. Allows you to put your favorite fractals into a Stash window. The thumbnails in the Stash can be saved to a new composite fractal file.

3. New Feature (OpenCL rendering only) : Render State files. When render state is saved to disk, a new file with extension .flrs file is created. Finder Quicklook will show the fractal’s thumbnail rendering with a progress bar showing the saved rendering progress. You can open the Render State files from the app – it is a new supported file type.

4. New Feature (OpenCL rendering only): A new Render State panel shows the saved rendering state and allows you to Resume the render, Post Process again, or view the fractal’s Histogram.

5. New Feature (OpenCL rendering only): A Histogram Viewer panel shows the fractal histogram (part of the rendering state).

6. Fractal Symmetry is now one of the parameters that can be set for random fractal generation.

7. Gamma threshold is now supported by the OpenCL and CUDA renderers.

8. Variants Editor changes:

a) New Symmetry Tab – see how fractal symmetry variants effect image

a) New Final Transform Tab – experiment with change the final transform

c) Transform Options tab now shows sliders to vary the strength of the variation change for weight, color index, color speed, and variation weight.

9. Image viewer now supports either Actual Size or Size to Fit viewing options.

Continue reading Release Notes for Version 2.2 →

Flame Stash

Save your favorite random and variant fractals to the Stash. Makes it easy to cull the best fractals you find and collect them into one place. You can then create a new composite fractal with Stash contents.

Random fractal generation with Symmetry.

You can add Symmetry as a random fractal generation parameter and see how it affects your randomly generated fractals. Here the symmetry was set to 4.

Final Transform and Symmetry Variants

Here we are applying a random combination of Loonie and Handkerchielf variants to the Final Xform:

Here we are looking at random Symmetry variants:

Interrupt Long Renders and Save Render State

You can pause a long render to file which saves the rendering state. This lets you exit the app knowing that you can resume the render at any time.

Rendering state is saved to a new file type (.flrs file ending): i.e. RenderState.flrs

Add Additional Render Quality – Recharge Quality

If you have chosen to save the render state for an image render,

you can inspect the image, choose to add additional quality, and resume the render from its saved state. You can do this as many times as you like.

This incremental rendering capability is a huge time saver.

Post-Process Again

With saved render state, you can tweak the post processing and do it again very quickly. This allows you to make the very best possible image for your fractal.

Histogram Viewer

You can look at the histograms saved in the rendered state:

Finder Quicklook and Thumbnail support for RenderState files

Render State files show a rendering progress bar. See the bottom right thumbnail in the Finder image:

Rendered Image Window now has Size to Fit option

The rendered images can now be viewed at either Actual Size or Sizeed to Fit the viewable area on the display screen.

Bug Fixes

1) Preferences for Preview width and height is fixed.

2) ATI 4670 GPU now supported with OpenCL GPU renders (but not recommended).

3) ATI 4xxxx GPUs now use OpenCL CPU rendering for Finder thumbnail and Quicklook renders. (ATI 4xxxx GPUs render slower than the CPU !)

4) OpenCL Rendering using CPU now checks free memory and tiles as needed.

5) For App Sandboxing compatibility, you first choose the image type to render to before choosing the filename.

Fractaling Across the Universe

Fractal Architect Blog

Monthly Archives: March 2012

Release Notes for Version 2.2

New features in Version 2.2 – Recharger

Fractaling Across the Universe