It’s Friday already! This week I’ve been jamming on this application UI development, including a brand-new feature to support fractals: the color mapping control:
For fractal rendering the integers below each color correspond to the output value (escape iterations) to which the color is assigned. The linear-gradient mapping mode means that colors between these values will be interpolated evenly between them. Here’s the image that is using these control settings, with the dark-red background color of the canvas showing through for values above 30:
There are non-gradient coloration modes supported by the control. A color cycle is easy to set up with this control – all colors are used, and they just repeat for each successive band of output. This one’s a little different in that some of the colors are assigned to be transparent, letting the deep blue background color show through at those levels:
Gradients can look a bit more subtle and organic, as with these two depictions of the same region as the above with only slightly different parameters, but very different color setup:
Finally there is an assigned mode that is neither gradient nor cycle – the fractal simply uses colors that are assigned to specific output values, does not cycle and and draws nothing for those areas that are not assigned. This is an interesting way to pull partial images out of what might otherwise be a busy fractal. Here’s an image made this way, with settings not too far from the first image of this post:
There are still a few bugs to work out with the new color mapping control, and a couple of options to add. More to come next week!