Formula Database
When sharing your parameter files it often happens that you use formulas which other users do not have. So they have to ask for the specific formulas you used for your fractals. The same happens if you have a more recent version of the formula.
In order to circumvent this problem a public Internet Database has been set up. In fact, there exist two Internet Databases, one for UltraFractal formulas and one for ChaosPro formulas. Whenever a formula author has written a new formula (or a new version of his/her formula), the author should upload that formula into the database.
The advantages are that the databases contain many formulas, so users do not have to search around for additional formulas to use with ChaosPro. And additionally the users can easily get the most recent versions of the formulas.
The URLs for these databases are:
In order to upload to these databases you need to register first. This process is explained on the Internet pages in more detail.
In order to synchronize with these databases you have two possibilities: Either the hard way, i.e. manually, or the easy way, i.e. automatic.
Automatic synchronization
 Fig.: Update Window ChaosPro can automatically synchronize its formulas with the public Internet formula databases for ChaosPro and UltraFractal. You open the window by selecting the menu item “Windows/Update Formulas”. The Formula Databases allow you not only to download all formulas, but also to download changes which have been made. This saves download time, as the complete databases consume several MByte. ChaosPro suggests how to synchronize: Either “complete” or “changes only”, depending on whether (and when) you have successfully synchronized your formulas before. When you click onto “Start”, ChaosPro connects to the formula databases and downloads the formulas. It then extracts the files (zip files) and imports them into ChaosPro. Note ChaosPro uses your current Internet connection. ChaosPro won’t establish a new connection! If you are connected to the Internet, ChaosPro will use your default proxy settings exactly as defined in your browser. So if you are behind a firewall, don’t worry, it should work: If your browser can access the formula database, ChaosPro can do that, too, because ChaosPro actually uses your browser… |
Manual synchronization
In order to manually synchronize the formulas, you have to do the following steps:
- Surf to the formula databases:
and download the appropriate files. You then should have two zip files on your harddisk, one from the ChaosPro Formula Database and one from the UltraFractal Formula Database.
- You then need to extract the zip-files using an unzip utility (Winzip, Winrar, pkunzip and many others)…
- Copy the extracted ChaosPro formulas into the directory “ChaosPro/Formulas/Compiler”.
- Select the folder into which you have extracted the formulas from the UltraFractal Formula Database and rename that folder to “Ultra Fractal”, so ChaosPro puts your formulas into the correct directory.
- Start ChaosPro, select menu item “File/Import/Compiler Formulas” and select the “Ultra Fractal” directory. ChaosPro then will import the formulas, which may take some time.
- Now all formulas have been imported. But the formula database contains some more files like txt-files, help files or parameter files. These files have to be copied manually: So using the Windows Explorer select the directory “Ultra Fractal”, delete all *.uxf, *.ufm and *.ucl files (these have been imported) and after that copy all remaining files into “ChaosPro/Formulas/Ultra Fractal”.
- Remove (i.e. delete) the downloaded zip files and the folders which were created while extracting the zip files.
- Done!
The automatic update feature will do just the same. And it will remove all temporary files at the end of the process.