Fractal Window

This window displays the fractal. You open this window (and thus start the calculation) by clicking onto the green traffic light in the toolbar. This action creates a low priority thread responsible for calculating the fractal, opens a window and allocates memory which is needed for the calculation.

Because the fractal is calculated by a thread inside ChaosPro, you can continue to work with ChaosPro and, for example, calculate yet another fractal. Then just another thread is created, another window is opened, even more memory is allocated. You can continue doing so, until your computer runs out of memory.

Because the thread is a low priority thread you can continue to work with other applications. The system should be as fast as normal. The thread responsible for the calculation uses your processor only if nobody else wants it.

Well, there are some actions possible in this fractal window.

Notes:

  • Not all actions are applicable to all fractal types, for example zooming / dragging is not possible with plasma
  • Most of the actions are available only when you are in 2D mode because they directly affect the fractal.

Mouse actions in 2D mode

The following mouse operations have a special meaning: They are applicable only in 2D mode.

  • First of all, you can move the fractal around by simply dragging it, i.e. by pressing the left mouse button and moving the mouse. The thread responsible for calculating the fractal will detect these operations and try to catch up in calculating the portions of the fractal, which are new / blank.
  • You can zoom into /out of the fractal by double clicking with the mouse. If you double click onto any point in the window using the left mouse button, then you zoom into the fractal at this point by a factor of 2. The image is scaled and totally recalculated, so directly after having double clicked you still have an idea of how the image will look like. Other programs simply clear the window and so you have to wait some time before you see whether you zoomed in at the right place.
  • If you double click using the right mouse button, then you zoom out by a factor of 2. Again, the image will be scaled.
  • If you prefer box zooming, then there are two possibilities: You can choose menu item ‘Fractal/Select’ to bring up a selection box, which you can move around (by dragging it) or which you can resize (by dragging one of the knots at the edge). After the box defines the correct location to zoom in / out, you can choose menu item ‘Fractal / Zoom / Boxzoom in / out’

    How difficult! And now an easier method:

    Simply hold down the Shift-key on your keyboard and spawn up a selection box, i.e. press the left mouse button at any location in the window and while holding down the button move the mouse around.

    You can adjust the box, if you like.

    If you want to zoom in / out, simply double click with the mouse into the rectangle using the left mouse button for zooming in, and the right button for zooming out.

  • Sometimes it may happen that you want to preserve the old image, but you want to zoom in, i.e. you want to duplicate the image and zoom in into the cloned ones. To make these steps easier simply hold down CTRL-Key on your keyboard and zoom in (works with box zoom, too). This way ChaosPro clones the window and zooms in using the copy.
  • You can resize the fractal by simply resizing the window. The whole image will be scaled to give you a good overview of how the image will look like after resizing.

    Note: Applicable only if ‘Scrollbar’ is set to OFF, because otherwise the fractal size is independent of the window size. The fractal can be resized using the Size window, too. This window offers several standard window sizes for your convenience.


Fractal window Context menu

The fractal window itself has a context menu attached: If you hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and then press the right mouse button, then the context menu appears. It is basically the same as Menu/Fractal.


Mouse actions in 3D mode

If you are in standard 3D mode (i.e. not OpenGL), then the only action possible is resizing the window.
If you are currently using the OpenGL mode, then the following mouse actions are supported:

  • Holding down the left mouse button and moving the mouse left/right will change the horizontal observer angle: In other words, you will rotate around the fractal horizontally.
  • Holding down the left mouse button and moving the mouse up/down will change the vertical observer angle: In other words, you will rotate around the fractal vertically.
  • Holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse up/down will change the distance from the fractal.

Fractal Window