1.8 Parameter Save/Restore Commands
Parameter files can be used to save/restore all options and settings
required to recreate particular images. The parameters required to
describe an image require very little disk space, especially compared
with saving the image itself.
<@> or <2>
The <@> or <2> command loads a set of parameters describing an image.
(Actually, it can also be used to set non-image parameters such as
SOUND, but at this point we're interested in images. Other uses of
parameter files are discussed in "Parameter Files and the <@> Command"
(p. 121).)
When you hit <@> or <2>, Fractint displays the names of the entries in
the currently selected parameter file. The default parameter file,
FRACTINT.PAR, is included with the Fractint release and contains
parameters for some sample images.
After pressing <@> or <2>, highlight an entry and press <Enter> to load
it, or press <F6> to change to another parameter file.
Note that parameter file entries specify all calculation related
parameters, but do not specify things like the video mode - the image
will be plotted in your currently selected mode.
<B>
The <B> command saves the parameters required to describe the currently
displayed image, which can subsequently be used with the <@> or <2>
command to recreate it.
After you press <B>, Fractint prompts for:
Parameter file: The name of the file to store the parameters in. You
should use some name like "myimages" instead of fractint.par, so that
your images are kept separate from the ones released with new versions
of Fractint. You can use the PARMFILE= command in SSTOOLS.INI to set
the default parameter file name to "myimages" or whatever. (See
"Setting Defaults (SSTOOLS.INI File)" (p. 120) and "parmfile=" in
"File Parameters" (p. 133).)
Name: The name you want to assign to the entry, to be displayed when
the <@> or <2> command is used.
Main comment: A comment to be shown beside the entry in the <@>
command display.
Second, Third, and Fourth comment: Additional comments to store in
the file with the entry. These comments go in the file only, and are
not displayed by the <@> command. You can set these comments from the
command line - see Comment= Command (p. 122).
Record colors?: Whether color information should be included in the
entry. Usually the default value displayed by Fractint is what you
want. Allowed values are:
"no" - Don't record colors.
"@mapfilename" - When these parameters are used, load colors from the
named color map file. This is the default if you are currently
using colors from a color map file.
"yes" - Record the colors in detail. This is the default when you've
changed the display colors by using the palette editor or by color
cycling. The only reason that this isn't what Fractint always does
for the <B> command is that color information can be bulky - up to
nearly 3K of disk space per map - which adds up to a lot for many
images. Smooth-shaded ranges of colors are compressed, so if that's
used a lot in an image the color information won't be as bulky.
"only" - Record only the colors in the PAR file, without any other
parameters. This is useful for converting color maps to PAR
entries.
# of colors: This only matters if "Record colors?" is set to "yes".
It specifies the number of colors to record. Recording less colors
will take less space. Usually the default value displayed by Fractint
is what you want. You might want to increase it in some cases, e.g. if
you are using a 256 color mode with maxiter 150, and have used the
palette editor to set all 256 possible colors for use with color
cycling, then you'll want to set the "# of colors" to 256.
See the Recordcolors (p. 128) command, which controls when mapfiles
are used and when compressed colors are written to PAR files.
maxlinelength: This number controls the maximum width of a parameter
entry in a PAR file. The default is 72 characters.
At the bottom of the input screen are inputs for Fractint's "pieces"
divide-and-conquer feature. You can create multiple PAR entries that
break an image up into pieces so that you can generate the image
pieces one by one. There are two reasons for doing this. The first is
in case the fractal is very slow, and you want to generate parts of
the image at the same time on several computers. The second is that
you might want to make an image greater than 2048 x 2048, the old
pixel limit for Fractint. The parameters for this feature are:
X Multiples - How many divisions of final image in the x direction
Y Multiples - How many divisions of final image in the y direction
Video mode - Fractint video mode for each piece (e.g. "F3")
The last item defaults to the current video mode. If either X
Multiples or Y Multiples are greater than 1, then multiple numbered
PAR entries for the pieces are added to the PAR file, and a
MAKEMIG.BAT file is created that builds all of the component pieces
and then stitches them together into a "multi-image" GIF. The current
limitations of the "divide and conquer" algorithm are 36 or fewer X
and Y multiples (so you are limited to "only" 36x36=1296 component
images), and a final resolution limit in both the X and Y directions
of 65,535 (a limitation of "only" four billion pixels or so).
The final image generated by MAKEMIG is a "multi-image" GIF file
called FRACTMIG.GIF. In case you have other software that can't
handle multi-image GIF files, MAKEMIG includes a final (but commented
out) call to SIMPLGIF, a companion program that reads a GIF file that
may contain little tricks like multiple images and creates a simple
GIF from it. Fair warning: SIMPLGIF needs room to build a composite
image while it works, and it does that using a temporary disk file
equal to the size of the final image - and a 64Kx64K GIF image
requires a 4GB temporary disk file!
<G>
The <G> command lets you give a startup parameter interactively.